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KING ARTHUR IN AVALON 

AND OTHER POEMS 



SARA HAMMOND PALFREY 

AUTHOR OF "HERMAN OR YOUNG KNIGHTHOOD," " SIR PAVON AND SAINT PAVON,' 
" AGNES WENTWORTH," "THE CHAPEL," "THE BLOSSOMING ROD," ETC. 



Neque, ie ut miretur turba> labores, 
Contentus paucis lectoribus 

Horace 



W. B. CLARKE COMPANY 

Park Street Church 

BOSTON 



I 



r? m o 



Library of Conprreoo 

Two Cupies REr»«»'ro | 
JAN 10 1901 

j. Copyright entry 
-4"rv. £ / q 

SECOND COPY 
Delivered to 

ORDER DIVISION 
JAN 12 1901 






Copyright, 1900 
By Sara Hammond Palfrey 



GEORGE H. ELLIS, PRINTER, 272 CONGRESS ST., BOSTON. 



TO 

ROSE G. KINGSLEY 

OF EVERSLEY, ENGLAND 

THESE POEMS ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 



PREFACE. 



Some of the poems in this collection are reprinted 
from previous volumes. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

King Arthur in Avalon i 

THE CHURCHYARD. 

In the Churchyard 19 

In the Cloisters 23 

James Jackson Lowell 23 

A. (R.) A 26 

C. J. N 28 

E. (G.) G 30 

The Next Wave 31 

C. (E.) N. 32 

M.(P.)C 34 

John Chipman Gray 36 

M. P 38 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 40 

E. L. (B.) D 42 

The Duveneck Monument 44 

Henry Wilder Foote 45 

M. D. F 47 

S. G. T 49 

E. S. N 50 

James Russell Lowell 51 

C.(E.)P 54 

Andrew Preston Peabody 55 

M. (B.) D 56 



Vlll 

PAGE 

E. (L.) L 57 

E. R, (C.) D 57 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 58 

A. C. L 59 

M. S. F 61 

M. (T.) C 62 

M. E. (N.) W 63 

S. G. C 64 

M. (L.) P 65 

S. P. (L.) B 66 

Robert Gould Shaw 67 

The Year of Deaths 68 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Ernest's Vision 71 

The Chapel 78 

God Leads Us On 82 

Springs in the Desert 84 

Petra 86 

A Vigil with Saint Louis 96 

Three Sonnets for Lent. 

I. The Father 103 

II. The Healer 103 

III. The Gardener 104 

Yearnings 105 

Lead and Gold . 105 

Peace; be Still 106 

The Shadow 107 

The Game of Death and Life 107 

Herman's Vigils 108 

The Child's Plea 114 



IX 

PAGE 

quare tristis? 115 

The Rock 116 

Anna the Prophetess 119 

The Light-house 121 

The Soul and the Word 123 

Vespers 128 

The Cross 130 

Dreaming and Waking 132 

Time in the Way 134 

Lazarus' Wife at the Gate .136 

Gold 139 

A Modern Briareus 140 

A Dark Saying 141 

The Man with a Grudge 142 

Ad Astra per Aspera 143 

Sober Saws 145 

Two Wishes 146 

Memory £47 

The Wreck 152 

On the White Hills 154 

Time on Trial 156 

Life and the Mendicant 158 

In vita Musa 160 

The Dreaming Ariana 161 

To R. (H.) L 164 

A Prince Rupert's Drop 164 

Forney the Jailer 165 

"Not All a Dream" 168 

Casus Belli 170 

A War-song 171 

Judgment to Come 173 



X 

PAGE 

Rose Rock. (From " Herman or Young Knight- 
hood") 175 

potage aux pantoufles 180 

The Ivy Poet. 

I. On an Epidemic of Mumps in a Certain Uni- 
versity Town . 182 

II. On a Certain Fire-alarm 182 

Ode on Mortality 184 

For Children. 

I. The Daisy in the Garden 185 

II. The Dandelion by the Sea 186 

Newtowne J 87 

Notes I ^9 



KING ARTHUR IN AVALON.* 
Part I. 

" The hymn of the conquered, who fell in the battle of life, 
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife, * * * 
The weary, the broken in heart, 

Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part ; * * * 
Whose hopes burned in ashes away : 

From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at; who stood at the dying of day, 
With the wreck of their life all around them, unpitied, unheeded, alone, 
With Death swooping down on their failure, and all but their faith overthrown." 

" Io Vict is," by William Story. 

The day was ending. Uther's mighty son 
Had put forth all his strength, and all in vain. 
Fate was his foes' ally ; and Fate had won 
The battle. All around him on the plain 
Lay the stark bodies of his warriors slain, 
With faces to the sky and wounds in front. 
They echoed not his war-cry to their wont. 

Oh, day of anguish ! Strange and awful day 
Of pain more piercing than the pain of wounds, — 
Wounds scarcely felt, numbed by the great dismay 
Unspeakable that a great soul astounds, — 
His soul that, never taught in any strife 
Before to spell the ugly word defeat, 
Just in the very crisis of his life, 
Hath done his best of bests but to be foiled, 

*See Note I. at the end of the volume. 



He knows not why, and strives and strives amain 

But to be beaten o'er and o'er again, 

His onslaughts baffled and his standard moiled ! 

And Launcelot was not there, nor Lionel, 
Villyars, nor Melyas brave, nor Sir Lavayne ; 
They who erewhile around him fought so well, 
With many another, now were worse than slain. 
Treason had broken up the Table Round. 
He who can patch burst bubbles on the mere, 
Let him old broken fellowships make sound, 
By discord sundered, — once how leal and dear ! — 
And he who hath the power, by witchcraft deft, 
The crumbled eggs the cuckoo's beak hath cleft, 
Filled with new life, without a scar to mend, 
Bid him with magic skill to join once more 
The ties undone, once knit through friend to friend, 
Round heart and heart as closely as before. 

Still Arthur fought and struggled, e'en as one 
Fights with a grisly dream and strives to wake. 
He saw that he was more and more alone. 
A spell was on him that he could not break. 
He called on Galahad and Percivale, 
And then remembered they had long been dead. 
He rallying led his dwindling squadrons on, 
That melted as the surf upon the rock, 
And set his lonely breast to meet the shock 
Of foemen still more swarming to make head 
Against him ; for 'tis something, not to quail, 
When comes the time no longer to prevail. 



And Mordred marked, — his kinsman traitor black,— 
And bode his time ; till Arthur 'gainst an oak 
His heaving shoulder leaned a breathing-space. 
He dared not look him in the royal face, 
But ran behind and stabbed him in the back, 
As the sly coward snake doth glide and sting, 
Then fled content. Oh, kindred glaives cut deep ! 

As the shot stag his antlers high doth fling, 
So threw his hands aloft the stricken king, 
And fell at last. He fell and rose no more, 
Pierced to the soul, — oh, kindred steel stabs sore ! — 
While unawares a cry from out him broke 
Of more than any fleshly pang, and woke 
Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere, who lay 
Fast in a deathly swoon, and made them leap, 
Two ghastly wights, as from two graves two ghosts 
All pale and wavering, quick to seize on him 
And steal him from the trampling of the hosts. 
They reared the mighty frame ; each drooping limb 
They gathered up. O'erpowered beneath the weight, 
Fell Lucan back, and breathed his last life out, 
With patient looks, before his master's feet. 

And Arthur saw and moaned, with sobbing breath, 
" Oh, loyal, — dear, — oh, trusty one ! — thy death, — 
I thank thee, — makes death easier unto me. 
Hark, — nearer, — hear the rebels how they shout ! 
Go, leave me, Bedivere ; and save one life. 
Mine canst thou not ; nor would I that thou shouldst, 
Having lost all that makes it life to live. 



Win bays hereafter in some happier strife. 
To-day and aye, thou hast done all thou couldst." 

He gasped away to dumbness ; and again 
Strove Bedivere to lift him from the plain, 
But could not till he'd stripped him of his mail, 
Helm, shield, and breast -plate, — weakly then did heave 
His master up. Excalybur 'gan trail 
Down from his hand, and still a furrow ploughed 
Unevenly along the dust, as slow 
The knight set staggering footsteps one by one, 
With head bent down and burdened shoulders bowed. 
King Arthur could not lift, nor would let go, 
The mystic sword, — not yet, — till, on a strand, 
A ruined chapel, buried half in sand 
And half in ivy, met and took them in. 
They saw themselves unseen and all alone; 
And their stunned ears were sheltered from the din 
Of following battle. Panting Bedivere 
Stooped lower still, and eased him of his load, 
And laid his sovereign on a tomb, both broad 
And long, above the nettles which there grew, 
And loosed his sinews from their cramp and ache. 

And Arthur writhed his neck ; the gathering dew 
He sucked from the cold stone ; and thus he spake : 

" So ! — Good it is for me that I am here. 
My goodly knights are earth on the dead earth ; 
Myself henceforth am only a dead knight, — 
Dead in their deaths more dear than life to me, — 



And I shall never be myself again ! 

Oh, Bedivere, a kinsman's blade is keen ! 

My woful body's homesick for the mould. 

Fast draws on me a never-waking sleep ; 

And soon my burning fever shall be cold. 

Mourn not ; for thus Death ever followed Birth 

Since first the hapless race of Man began ; 

Thus shall it ever do till Time shall end. 

Mine eye grows dim ; and, throbbing on my ear, 

I hear the beating of a shoreless sea. 

Pray for my soul . — Thou art not gone ? — O friend, 

One service more, — one only, — do thy lord. 

Take, Bedivere, and drown, my vanquished sword 

Where never man shall look upon it more ; 

Hurl 't from some beetling cliff the waters o'er ; 

Then lightly bring me word if aught thou seest." 

Sir Bedivere went sadly forth to turn 
His beaded forehead to the windy west. 
The sun was setting, angry, wild, and red, 
Going like a wounded warrior to his bed, 
With threats of rising to a fiercer morn. 
A double sunset weltered in the flood ; 
And swam beneath his feet a sea of blood, 
As on the brink he stood. With stronger hold 
He clutched Excalybur, and slowly wound 
The baldrick rich the jewelled hilt around, 
And took a parting look at all the gold, 
Emeralds, pearls, rubies, — looked again below 
Among the waves, considering where to throw, 
Then at the sword, — till, gazing to and fro, 



He said, " King Arthur's crazed with wounds and woe, 
And knows not what he'd have. The leech's skill 
Oft serves the sick man's weal against his will ; 
And so must I. He will be healed anon. 
His troops will rally. If his sword be gone, 
I shall be sorely blamed, with reason, when 
He strides in steel once more before his men, 
And Future cancels Past ; — for, sad or gay, 
To-morrow never will be as To-day." 

He looked behind him ; and a hollow tree 
Stood like a beckoning sentry on a height : 
" Here shall Excalybur in safety be 
Until my lord demands it back of me." 
He thrust it up the trunk and, from the sight 
Of hind or fisherman by Chance led by, 
Smothered its sparkles close, with sea-weeds dry, 
Then hurried to his master languishing. 
And " Hast thou done my errand ? " sighed the king. 

With looks askance, as one unused to lie, 
And faltering tongue, Sir Bedivere said, " Ay." 

"What saw'st thou?" 

" Naught but waves that fawned, and licked, 
Like hungry hounds, the wet feet of the rocks." 

Upstarting to his elbow, "Am I tricked," 
Cried Arthur, " on my death-bed, and by thee ? 
Know that a dying king is still a king ! 



Straight find my sword, and in the waters fling ; 
Or I ! " — His wounds burst forth afresh ; and he 
Sank back in speechless rage, with eyes that glared. 

And Bedivere, " 'Twas for thy sake, I dared 
To disobey. I did but for the best " ; 
And, more than his mild words, his loyal face, 
Dyed with unwonted shame, did plead for him, 
And with his master well-nigh made his peace. 

" Then go and do thy best, — not l for the best ' ; 
That often is the worst." 

" I go, thy hest, 
My clearest liege, most throughly to fulfil ; 
Yet oh, bethink thee once ! The matchless brand 
Alone of all befits thy matchless hand ; 
And thou may'st sorely miss it yet one day, 
When the vain mermen with it sport and play. 
Take heart, and live. These hurts are not to death." 

Moaned Arthur : " Wouldst thou waste my parting 
breath, 
Due all to prayers ? Go thou, and do my will. 
Mine arm is broken ; and my veins are drained. 
To everything on earth there comes an end. 

comrade, comrade, kinsmen's cuts are keen, 
And I shall never do my best again ! 

1 tell thee it is time for me to die. 
But if I lived to sit at slothful ease, 

Mid women and their works, as Hercules 



Of yore behind the wheel of Omphale, 
Would the brave sword be a reproach to me, 
And on the wall hang like mine effigy." 

Sir Bedivere unto the seashore hied. 
The west was paling like a dying man. 
He peered into the hollow trunk. A spark, — 
A diamond, — twinkled downward through the dark 
And rubbish, that to hide it vainly tried. 
Excalybur came forth ; and he began 
Anew its jewelled hilt and sheath to scan, 
Till failed his heart once more ; for every gem 
Seemed to him like an angry tear to flash, 
With wrathful lightnings through the gathering gloom, 
As chafing hotly at the unworthy doom. 
That gave it brine for blood. " I cannot do 't," 
With answering tears he said ; " Oh, 'twere too rash ! 
My king himself, too late, the deed would chide 
And claim his weapon of the unyielding tide. 
And, when thus recklessly away we cast 
From us the sacred heirlooms of the past, 
We throw away our past that cleaves to them. 
He will be whole and cheered, and on his throne 
Sit calmly, come again unto his own, 
With wise gray heads around the council-board ; 
And they will lift slow eyes from scroll and seal 
And chartered ordinance for the public weal, 
To see the glory of the mighty sword 
Fling from the wall its mystic splendours down 
Confronted with the sceptre and the crown ; 
And they will smile and say, 'All things in turn. 



He is scarce greater now than in his morn, — 
In counsel than, in youth, he was in war. — 
Behold the witness there, Excalybur.' 
And he may leave it to a doughty son, 
When all his earthly deeds in sooth are done." 
He gave it back unto the hollow thorn, 
And sought the ruin with a fearful foot. 

" Now hast thou done my bidding ? — Saw'st thou 
aught ? " 

Sir Bevidere made answer, " Nay," and " Naught ; 
But hear me." 

Groaned the king, " I cannot hear. 
Will none obey ? Oh, is 't too late ? — too late ! — 
Methought it lay in me to conquer Fate. 
Why heeds me no one ? Where are all my train ? " 
He moaned aloud, scarce witting what he said. 

The knight knelt down and sobbed : " Oh, master dear, 
Dost thou not know me ? I am Bedivere." 

" I know thee not. The man who bore that name 
Was true and trusty to me." 

" I, the same." 

" Prove it. If Arthur can command no more, 
Then, in my utmost need will I implore : 
Spare not Excalybur, but cast it in. 



10 

To mock a dying man, it is a sin. 

My heart is broken ; and my hope is dead." 

Then saw the knight, that it was all in vain. 
With tottering speed unto the cliffs he ran. 
Now all the glow was quenched within the sky ; 
But, o'er the sea, a light sepulchral gleamed 
Like corpse-lights o'er the graves of buried men. 
He dared not face the magic sword again, 
But, groping, tore it forth and hurled it high 
And far ; when, lo, a wonder ! For there seemed 
A hand and arm, — no human hand and arm ! — 
To start to meet the hilt from out a wave ; 
And thrice they brandished the mystic glaive, 
Then vanished with it, as if they a charm 
Had wrought, of meaning never to be told. 

He flew unto his master. " It is done ! " 
He panted. 

Him King Arthur answered not. 
The knight stooped quick unto him, as he lay ; 
Like the dim shimmer of a mist -quenched moon, 
The phantom of a dying smile was caught, 
And seen the questioning of a speechless look, 
Most eager. 

" When I threw thy sword away, 
This marvel did my watery eyes behold : 
A hand and arm from out the billows broke, 
And caught and brandished it with threefold sweep, 
Then drew it down with them into the deep." 



II 

And Arthur lifted up his trembling hands, 
Like a sick infant, with the dumb commands 
Of helplessness, when it would carried be, 
And pointed where he heard the sounding sea ; 
And bearing him, with toil and travail sore, 
His loyal liegeman reached again the shore. 

A cloud came forth out of the cloudy west ; 
And in its darkness darkling shapes took shape, 
Till, ere they found the shuddering Bedivere, 
He dimly might descry a sable barge 
That held right on without an oar or sail ; 
And those within it sang a hollow dirge ; 
And, as it neared him, 'mid the shadowy crew, 
The black-stoled Queen of North Galys he knew, 
And her of the Waste Lands ; and loud did weep, 
Morgan le Fay, King Arthur's sister, wail, 
And beat her breast between them. 

Straight her veil 
Blew over the knight's eyes ; and, lo, his charge 
Was gone out of his arms, he wist not how ! 
He stood forsaken on the strand, and cried, 
" My lord, my loved, come back ! What should I do 
Not serving thee ? Come back ! What should betide 
Me lonely in the emptied world ? If fled 
From it forever, take me ! — Take my breath, 
Dark spirits ! " — 

Faint and far, from o'er the surge, 
King Arthur answered with the voice of death, 



12 

" Look to thyself. Heaven help thee ! I am sped. 

I go unto the Isle of Avalon ; 

For there they say, at last I shall find rest 

For all my stormy years of sovereignty." 

Part II. 

King Arthur sailed along a sea unknown. 
Met him the misty Night, and drew him in 
Unto the cherishing shelter of her breast. 
He glided onward toward the land of rest. 
In his parched throat, his burning thirst was drowned 
By draughts of coolness, brought by hands unseen. 
Upon his long-lost mother's lap, his head, 
Worn out with toil and woe, was softly laid, — 
Or so he deemed. Her tender palms were pressed 
Unto his temples ; and his brow was kissed 
By her fond lips, that murmured love and peace 
As in some childish sickness long ago. 
Far Uther called before, " Well done, — well done ! 
Here grow thy laurels, son, — my worthy son ! " 
The waves sang lullabies to him, and rocked 
His weary frame all bruised and battle-shocked, 
And soothed it slowly into slumberous ease ; 
And thus he slept, to wake in Avalon, — 
If waking e'er was calm as any dream, — 
Half wake, and sleep again. 

Around did seem, 
Or were, his knights all laid, as oft of yore 
In lusty bivouac ; but frost or snow 



13 

Or wind or rattling hail came nigh no more. 

Sunrise and sunset, these made all their day. 

Around them, for the most part, moonbeams lay 

Exchanging watch with starlight, to the sound 

Of rippling brooks, that played a harmony 

Unto the nightingales' weird melody, 

Or to the distant surgings of the surf 

Below them, where they pressed some steep's scant turf. 

No uttered speech among them now was there, 

Nor any need of speech amid the dear 

Unuttered sympathy of love and cheer. 

In sentient trance, without a look or word, 

He saw the vanished and the voiceless heard. 

Heart answered unto heart, and mind to mind, 

In a most eloquent silence. Now a hymn 

Swelled upward from the soul of Galahad, 

And lulled King Arthur with its sweetness dim ; 

And now he laughed in slumber at some whim 

That, tickling, crossed the freakish brain of Kay. 

Sometimes they round him camped, in many a tent, 
Whereon soft rains their drowsy patterings spent, 
With cosey whisperings bidding still their sleep, 
In shelter snug, to grow more sound and deep. 
(The dog that loved him once, and died in pain, 
Slept at his feet or licked his hand again.) 
Sometimes they rested in a churchyard calm, 
A troop of spirits, on the graves' thick grass. 
Sometimes amid a minster's painted glooms 
They seemed to lie, (like Templars on their tombs), 
And he among them carved, a marble knight, 



14 

To hear, within the sacred candles' light, 
The holy choirs unseen chant laud or psalm. 
No more was he forsaken anywhere. 

At first he heard the voices of his foes 
That, on their hurried way, seemed nigh to pass 
Ere, into silence swept away, they went 
Before a judgment-seat, where Justice sat 
And waited them. Sir Launcelot, following, wrung 
Unmailed hands and, with a noiseless tongue, 
Forgiveness asked, with eyes that gazed through tears. 
And rained remorseful sorrow o'er his woes. 
All Arthur's wrath was melted straight thereat ; 
And, through his sleep, he murmured his assent 
With answering tears of pity ; and anon 
Foes and their bitter memories were gone ; 
Nor any lingering rancour left behind, 
Nor any power to vex him more they had. 

No longer haunted him light Guinevere ; 
But watching o'er him often did appear 
Instead, his boyhood's love, her sister fair, 
Who loved him, only him, and loved him well, — 
Sweet maid, too early crowned with asphodel. — 

The joy of youth came back to him. He thrilled 
With growing powers that all his being filled. 
Each innocent Yearning that was starved to death 
Erst, by the hard conditions of this life, 
Arose new-born, and smiled on him full-fed. 
Despair in turn was killed and, deep beneath 



15 

The past's old ruins, buried by the years ; 
And everywhere was balm, and nowhere strife. 

So still he sleeps, and does not care to wake ; 
But Merlin saith, at length a day shall break 
And ripen onward to another noon 
When, master of his fate and blithe and whole, 
And all renewed in body, mind, and soul, 
King Arthur, with his knights, shall come again, 
To wield Excalybur, and not in vain. 



THE CHURCHYARD. 



" Whose voice would greet me with a sweeter tone. 
Whose living hand more kindly press my own, 
Than theirs, — could Memory, as her silent tread 
Prints the pale flowers that blossom o'er the dead, 
Those breathless lips, now closed in peace, restore, 
Or wake those pulses hushed to beat no more ? " * 

Holmes. 

" I take the grasses of the grave 
And make them pipes whereon to blow." 

Tennyson. 

* See Note II. 



19 



IN THE CHURCHYARD.* 

" They are all gone into the world of light, 
And I alone sit ling'ring here." 

Henry Vattghan. 

" In the churchyard dim, I sit, 
While the bats above me flit, 

Far aloof from Life's gay hosts. 
Very dreary, — very lonely, — 
For my audience, I am only 

Singing to the silent ghosts. 

" Moan is made ; and prayer is said. 
I am deader than the dead. 

Oh, my loved ones, all gone home, 
Are you gone from me forever ? 
Do you think upon me never ? 

Are you deaf as you are dumb ? 

" When the Grecian hero went, 
By the enchantress Circe sent 

Down to Hades' iron door, 
Gore of sheep brought to him thronging 
All the shades to him belonging. 

Not my tears alone I pour ; 

" See, my own pierced heart a flood 
For you, of its own best blood, 
Sheds within and sheds in vain. 

*See Note III. 



20 

Not one voice and not one vision 
Comes for me from lands Elysian ; 
None returns of all your train ! 

" Tis as vain for me to strive 
More to live with men alive ; 

Grope my hands, but cannot do. 
In unto your sheltered quiet, 
Take me from this world's dull riot. 

Let me be as still as you. 

" Ye, who held your various lamps, 
Through its labyrinths and damps, 

Once to light this life of mine, 
You have taken them and left me. 
I am lost, since you were reft me, 

In a black, mephitic mine. 

"How shall eyes that cannot sleep, — 
How shall eyes, that only weep, — 

See earth's prizes more to find ? 
' Land where all things are forgotten,' 
Be henceforth my place allotten ! 

Let me be unseen as blind." 

So I sang, and ceased and sat 
Only hearing owl and bat 

With my famished outward ears, — 
There a whoop and here a flutter, — 
Nor one longed-for word did utter, 

One dear tongue of vanished years. 



21 

Yet I thought my bleeding heart 
Did not all unmarked depart ; 

Souls made answer unto soul. 
When the moon rose shining faintly, 
Like a spirit fair and saintly, 

While the mists did round her roll, 

And the stillness of the hour 
Seemed from out the old church-tower 

Softly breathed o'er graves and grass, 
And the night-wind where it listed 
Softly blew and softly rested, — 

Like the Holy Ghost, did pass, — 

To mine inner sense, my dead 
Tenderly drew near and said, 

" Hast thou in our truth no trust ? — 
Truth through life, — to death, — approved ? 
What thou lov'dst in us, beloved, — 

That which loved thee, — was it dust ? 

° Take the blessing of our calm 
On thee. Go and find thy palm 

Where it grows 'mid passion-flowers. 
Be not rash to snatch the cerement. 
Haste to weave thy wedding-garment ; 

Fateful are the fleeting hours. 

" In the high and holy place 
Where we view our Saviour's face, 
Unreproached in peaceful state, 



22 

Doth our light no shadow borrow 
Cast by any by-gone sorrow ; 

Crowned, we bless our crosses' weight. 

"But, if ever we do grieve, 
'Tis, that somewhat we did leave 

Undone, which we might have done, — 
That somewhere earth's children languish 
'Neath the burden of an anguish 

We could reach beneath the sun. 

" Happier thou in this than we ; 
For the poor old world may be 

Still the better for thy stay, — 
Sweeter for thy living in it. 
Use thereto each counted minute ; 

Make thy mark on it for aye. 

" Then the time will not be long 
Ere thou join'st the angels' song. 

With a hallowed heart and mind 
Wait thy summons, not unwilling, — 
For our sake with speed fulfilling 

Service that we left behind." 



23 



IN THE CLOISTERS. 

Within the shady cloisters of old age, 
Paven with tomb-stones as some minster aisle, 
Ghost-like I walk, and con sad Memory's page 
For spells to raise the Past a little while. 
With a grief -whetted chisel, here and there, 
Do I retouch some dear dead name, well worth 
To be remembered, but which soon may fare 
With those no longer uttered upon earth. 
With tears I wash away some gathering dust, 
And chant low dirges that but few can hear, 
Grieving the less that soon the singer must, 
In turn, be laid on a returning bier. 

Ye few, who list, from the loud world come in, 
To muse o'er Worth and Beauty that have been. 



JAMES JACKSON LOWELL. 

LIEUTENANT 20TH REGIMENT, MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS. 
Glendale, July 4TH, 1862. 

Down in the rose-crowned earth's warm breast 
Lay the dear boy to his early rest, — 
Morning-glories with nightshade strown 
O'er the slight form whose work is done. 
Sadly sing with a faltering tongue, 
" Whom the gods love, they die — die young ! " 



24 

His country's sword on his coffin lay, 

And the sash that his fingers yesterday 

Knotted, — and warmed, — with their chill, stiff clay, — 

That rose and fell with his eager breath, 

As he smiling marched to his tryst with Death.* 

Light on such dust, the dust be thrown. 

The sod is shut, and the stripling gone. 

He is gone from a life that hath yielded him more 
Than to many another his slow fourscore : 
A generous stock that to honour grows 
As doth the rose's up to the rose ; 
Generous nurture that crowns the man 
Twice the king that mere nature can ; 
Hopes that were high, and not in vain ; 
The strength of limb with the strength of brain ; 
Manful toil with a child's frank mirth ; 
The hearse kept far aloof from the hearth ; 
Love that no doubt nor change e'er knew ; 
Chaplets of bays won ere chaplet of yew, 
In the gentle lists of the muses won, — 
Bays by a mother smiled upon ; — 
In a country worth dying for, gone from a life 
Nobly laid down in a glorious strife. 

He is gone with a memory lifted bright 
To shine like a star in the past's long night ; 
(Slander, that older fame makes dim, 
Had not had time to breathe on him ; ) 
With a soul unlost in the tangled maze 
And the crossing paths of earthly days ; 

*See Note IV. 



25 

And a courage, as long his mates shall tell, 
That did not fall when his death-stroke fell. 

He is gone to a life as calm and deep 
As the look that he wore when he sank to sleep, — 
Gone to a life as pure and high 
As the starry arch of the holy sky, — 
The arch that upholdeth the sapphire floor 
Meet for his feet forevermore. 
Those innocent feet have climbed Jacob's stair. 
Beneath rolls Earth with her rage, despair, 
And blood of Abel and howl of Cain, 
Where her hands can reach him never again. 
Out of his ears, her clamour dies 
In the everlasting harmonies. 
Heroes of old are his comrades now, 
In whose steps he trod when he walked below. 
His hope is a prophet whose word aye holds fast, — 
His sorrow is naught but a dream of the past, — 
Who, hallowed by Death, is by Death set free 
To a life that is immortality. 



26 



A. (R.) A. 

December 25TH, 1873. 

ARA, in your early tomb 

Laid with scarce a sennight's warning, 
From that dismal spot, a gloom 

Spreads o'er all this Christmas morning. 

As the grievous news is known, 

Still, where friend with friend is meeting, 
On each tongue throughout the town 

Dies away its wonted greeting. 

Seem our hearts with yours to stop, — 
" Merry " wishes, worse than folly. 

From our hands unnerved, we drop 
Ivy, mistletoe, and holly. 

Could our hills no Christmas tree 

Yield you, of their countless number, 

Save Mount Auburn, drearily 

Whispering o'er your breathless slumber ? 

Poverty unwonted joys 

From your bounty prompt doth borrow, 
While your cherished — orphan — boys 

View their gifts through showers of sorrow. 

Love meets death in powerless strife ; 
Else your years were of the longest, 



27 

Called from blest and blessing life, 

When life's dearest ties were strongest, 

Child, wife, mother, sister, friend, 
All too soon to angel turning, 

Your beginning meets your end, — 

End that clothes our souls in mourning. 

Who can wonder that the sun 

Doth the clouds for weeds importune, 

When her eyes, that steadfast shone 
Over dark or brilliant fortune, 

And her lips, that knew the speech 
Well of courage and of kindness, 

Ere he last went down, were each 
Hid in dumbness and in blindness ? 

But enough ! This holy day 

Tells us of Death's opened prison, — 

To our aching hearts doth say, 

In the old phrase, " Christ is risen." 

Sadness shadows many a face 

Round earth's lower boards and upper ; 
Can we grudge to her a place 

At her Saviour's marriage-supper? 

May He cry, — Who gives her wings 
For the other goods He lent her, — 

" Ruler over many things, 

To thy Lord's rejoicing enter ! " 



28 



C. J. N. 

May 12TH, 1877. 

"dlffugbre nives ; redeunt jam gramika campis 
Arboribusque com^:." — 

REINE ? — dead ! How like a ghastly contradiction 

It sounds ! as if one cried, 
Bewildered by the blow of strange affliction, 

That Life itself had died. 

Where'er she went, light dawned on faces weary, — 

Glad voices grew more gay. 
She makes one hushed and shaded chamber dreary, 

A darkness in the day, — 

The warm May day ! Sweet breathings from the willow 

Call all the birds to sing. 
She lies upon a cold and breathless pillow, 

Whose years were changeless Spring. 

She, who had balm for grief where'er it found her, 

Stranger's or friend's, she lies, — 
While all she loved in anguish throng around her, — 

Unmoved, with tearless eyes. 

" She " ? — no ! — but, for the tomb, her image beauteous ; 

For she the path hath trod, 
That leadeth spirits gentle, noble, duteous, 

And pure, to see their God. 



2 9 

Our ears were deadened by the hearse's rumble, 

The muffling weeds and pall, 
The undertaker's stealthy tread and mumble, — 

Death's muttering mummeries all. 

We marked it not ; but unto Woe that weepeth 

O'er her a Voice hath said, 
u Give place to me. The maiden only sleepeth. 

She rests. She is not dead." 

And hark ! Blest fates anew to her foretelling, 

It calleth from the skies, 
" Unto the mansions in my Father's dwelling, 

I say to thee, Arise ! " 

She flies from us. Our yearnings, reaching after, 

Still seek, and all in vain, 
For sweeter ways and words and looks and laughter 

Than earth shall know again. 

" In vain " ? — to draw us on with haste more fitting 

To climb the starry stair, 
And see her, with the "just, made perfect," sitting 

Enthroned in deathless air. 



Friends, the fair world seems to a death's-head turning, 

That smiled on us of yore ; 
Enough of it is left us for discerning 

The gaps in it, — scarce more. 



30 

Nay, — to a hollow egg, whose timely crumbling 

Souls hatcheth for the sky. 
The sooner for these strokes, our frailty humbling, 

Our turn shall come to fly, — 

To fly from earth and death and fear and sorrow, 

Where God wipes tears away, 
And tenfold giveth back His great to-morrow 

All that He takes to-day. 



E. (G.) G. 

June 8th, 1879. 

Peace to the peaceful, and good-night. 

Her many golden sands are run. 
She sleeps to wake in cloudless light, 

Who loved so well earth's fitful sun. 

Unto her Saviour undefiled 

Resign her without doubts or fears, 
Who ever was in heart a child, 

Unspoiled by eighty prosperous years. 

Good-night to friendship never cold, 
Nor cooled by any fickle shade, 

But only by her twelvemonths old, 
Lustres, and decades, firmer made. 

Good-night to kindly, trusty speech, 
Wherein no breath was ever heard 



3i 

Untrue, or harsh, — that had for each, 
Afar or near, its gracious word. 

Good-night to one, from youth to eld 
Who kept her faith without decay, 

Toward God as wel) as man, and held 
Unswervingly the narrow way. 

And now as from her threshold, sad 
For the first time, its seekers go, 

May angels give her welcomes, glad 
As 't was her wont to give below. 



THE NEXT WAVE.* 

July 9TH, 1879. 

In smiles she went, — in beauty's early bloom ; 

And those, who saw, did smile to see her go ; 
In haste she went, — to meet her early doom, 

That waited in Rafe's Chasm by Norman's Woe. 

Swept from the rock unto the ambushed death, — 
Beaten and tossed amid the billows' wrack, — 

To those she left, as with her parting breath, 

She panted, "The next wave will bring me back." 

Oh mother, the next wave will bring her back ! 

Oh emptied arms ! Oh desolated home ! 
Oh dumb, blank threshold, o'er whose foot -worn track 

One longed-for step, — one voice, — shall never come ! 

* See Note V. 



32 

Oh brother, the next wave will bring her back ! 

Oh childhood's memories ! Oh guileless glee ! 
Oh heart-strings knit so fast, to strain and crack ! — 

Shared sports and counsels, never more to be ! 

Oh lover, the next wave will bring her back ! 

Oh tenderest budding hopes so sweet and bright, 
That blossomed fruitless for a blight so black ! 

Oh morn, without a noon that rushed to night ! 

Ebb, wave of time, — oh, haste! — to sweep with thee 
All aching, bleeding hearts unto their rest. 

Next wave, bring back, — wave of eternity, — 

Our loved, — our lost, — our Saviour with the blest ! 



C. (E.) N. 

September 25TH, 1879. 

Through thinning woodlands, how a dull bell tolls * 
A knell whose echoes heavily will knoll 

Long, long, and low, within our mourning souls, 
Till over us Death's reaping wheels shall roll ! 

The burdened wains are groaning with the sheaves ; 

Stripped stubble bristles where the grain was green 
And she hath fallen amid the falling leaves, — 

To the eternal harvest gathered in ! 

*See Note VI. 



33 

Grand wifehood, motherhood, and widowhood ! 

Oh gracious link between us and a past 
Of loftier ways ! — Home-brooding elm that stood 

Till, fond, we dreamed it should forever last ! — 

Oh dignity of life that dignified 

All common life around, as some fair hill 

Ennobles all the landscape seen beside, — 
Grove, road, and meadow with its little rill ! 

Did angels grudge her beauty all too far, 

Like theirs, immortal, — which the reverent Years 

Touched tenderly to hallow, not to mar, — 

And snatch it from us through a mist of tears? 

Nay, long she waited when her joys were gone ; 

Her firm, sweet smiles hid deeps of inward pain, — 
Her fate's once golden thread in blackness drawn ; — 

And that which was our blessing was her bane. 

Toll on then through the dying woods, ye bells ! 

If that which is our bane her blessing is, 
Be ours the rainy eye, — the heart that swells, — 

And hers the fulness of heaven's dear-bought bliss. 



34 



M. (P.) C. 

October 8th, 1880. 

Once more our souls wear mourning weeds. The year 

is on the wane ; 
The summer lieth dead ; and for a little while again 
God takes from us, to perfect it, a gift that He hath 

given ; * 
The birds are flying to the South, — an angel unto 

heaven. 

The queen of home hath left her throne, — the saint 

her shrine deplored, — 
The household saint by votaries watched, guarded, and 

adored ! 
With reverent lips salute the shrine ; and softly let her 

With only tears of tenderness, — no violence of woe. 

Loud weeping would a discord make, her hallowed rest 

beside. 
She sweetly lived in peace and love ; and as she lived, 

she died. 
Thus let us mourn her, giving thanks for all that she 

hath been 
And is, and shall be when we meet anon in scenes unseen ; 

With tender tears, by smiles half lit, recall her ready 
mirth, 

*See Note VII. 



35 

Her generous hand, so eagerly that oped to hungry 

Dearth, 
Nor readier in its almsgiving its treasures to unclasp, 
Than quick and soft and warm to close in friendship's 

cordial grasp. 

Hearts aching with the cold upon life's frosty shady 

side, 
How soon they in her sunshine thawed ! Her nobleness 

with pride 
How little did it have to do ! In deed and word, how 

mild, 
Benign, and frank her dealing was with woman, man, 

and child ! 

No doom untimely took her by surprise. Her .works 

were done, — 
Her works of love in joyfulness. Her gracious course 

was run. 
In ripeness, — still unspoiled by Time, — in heart and 

mind and soul, 
She sat, her own dear self, composed and waiting at the 

goal. 

For her with all Thy servants, Lord, departed, Thee 

we bless, 
Beseeching Thee to give us grace, in faith and 

righteousness 
Their good examples following, so to end our course, 

and then 
Thy heavenly kingdom with them share, — in Jesu's 

name, amen ! 



36 



JOHN CHIPMAN GRAY. 

March 3D, 1881. 

And is he gone ? — So let him go. 
Why hold him back for Age and Woe 
To bring his manly spirit low ? 

His love was gone before. 
God speed him ! — changing faith to sight, 
And patient sorrow for delight, 
'Mid fadeless flowers where storm and blight 

Can near him come no more ; — 

For one, beside the pearly gates, 
Still for his coming looks and waits, 
Who shared so long his earthly fates 

She scarce can enter yet 
Into the joys of heaven, without 
The arm that circled her about 
With cares unflagging, to keep out 

The ills that earth beset. 

But lone this world grows. Must we see 
His face no more ? His hearty glee, 
As hearty hospitality, — 

Things are they of the past ? 
The old New England gentleman ; 
Of those with whom his life began, 
Men of his type, the thinned ranks scan, — 

Nay, he was nigh the last. 



37 

The place that waited him by birth, 
He filled so kindly on this earth, 
With simple dignity and worth 

And native courtesy ; 
With wealth that was for use, not show, 
That Envy's self might hardly know, 
For all his friends to find one foe. 

To neighbours, neighbourly, 

To women and to children, he 
Was brotherly and fatherly ; 
Liked his own country ; o'er the sea 

He felt small need to roam. 
With honour having served the State, 
He hung not on Ambition's bait, 
Contented in his round, sedate, 

To rule a prosperous home. 

His mother-wit on books he fed, 
As if they were his daily bread ; 
Good things he read, and good he said ; 

His pleasures were his own. 
How well he loved the morning air 
In garden or in orchard, — rare 
Blossoms and fruits to rear and share, 

Till he was left alone ! 

There is a time to live ; but, when 
Life has been long and faithful, then 
Welcome to worn and wearied men 

There is a time to die. 



38 

Sadly thy praises I rehearse, 
And reverently before thy hearse 
Cast down my garland of pale verse. 
Good, dear old friend, good-bye ! 



M. P. 

December 14TH, 1881. 

The last ripe fruit hath fallen now 
That hung upon the leafless bough. 
Oh dreary lot, — the last to be 
Of all a happy family ! 
On hearth and heart cold ashes lie ; 
Each window dark, — shut every eye. 
The last sad change, so slow to come, 
Has come unto that rare old home. 
The last ? — Not yet. Tis sad and strange 
To think how change still leads to change. 
Her home, of yore so full and sweet, 
May be the haunt of alien feet, 
And soon its reverend roof and wall 
By alien hands be doomed to fall, — 
Its sober old-time handsomeness, 
To modern moneyed show, give place. 

How many a year have we beheld 
Her comely and un wrinkled eld 
And, in her patient loneliness, 
Her brave and gallant cheeriness, 



39 

From selfish, fretful gloom as free 

As 'twas from heartless levity, 

Her easy, playful dignity, 

And courteous care, that suffered not 

One guest to dream himself forgot, — 

While circled round her bounteous board, 

The dainty sweet and sweeter word, — 

And never failed or flagged before 

Upon the last had shut the door, 

And she was left, — to grieve alone 

For dearer ones forever gone ! 

Her latest hours like all the rest, 
How did they see her, self-possessed, 
Ask but her Father's will to know, 
Or "pleased to stay" or "glad to go " ! 
On others' pathways to the last, 
She strewed her flowers as in the past, 
And, towards her waiting hearse made known, 
With kind farewells went gliding down, 
As calm as when her coach had come, 
At the right time, to take her home. 

She went as if to bear above 
A jewel for a ring of love 
That, broken long, shall be, we pray, 
Full-set once more for Christmas Day. 



4 o 



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

March 24TH, 1882. 

The lyre is made of funeral flowers, whereat no min- 
strel sings. 

The silver cord is loosed. For aye, are stilled the thrill- 
ing strings ; 

And, at the fount of melody, the pitcher lieth broken. 

The kindliest eyes have looked their last ; the tongue its 
last has spoken. 

" The deep, dull pain is ended now, — the patient 
anguish" over. 

By his beloved's side in peace, is laid the mourning 
lover. 

For more than Israel's forty years, have souls with 

sorrow aching 
Marched bravely through life's desert ways to music of 

his making. 
The goal, the rest, and the reward, 'twas time that he 

should win them, 
When fast the evil days drew on that have no pleasure 

in them. 

As a hurt nerve shoots round the breast its sudden 
dart of fire, 

So runs around the world's great heart the sharp electric 
wire 

That bears the tidings ; and about the streets the mourn- 
ers go 



4i 

In numbers that man knoweth not, and man can never 

know, 
Still spreading over every soil and under every clime, 
A train that is as wide as earth, — perhaps as long as 

time. 

For, whosoe'er the greatest be, our own (too well we 

know it, 
If we may trust our sorrow,) was the best and best-loved 

poet. 
A crowned and sceptred king of song, he kept no lonely 

state. 
He walked as in a garden rare, and did not lock the 

gate, 
But, from the clusters of his joys, drew wine to gladden 

others, — 
From bitter olives of his griefs, sweet oil to heal his 

brothers. 

He pushed not for a foremost place, but sat above the 

strife 
Where men are shouldering men, and set to music all 

our life, 
As sits the gentle organist behind the shrieking choir, 
And players vying each with each, with string and reed 

and wire, — 
His soft hands laid upon his keys, — and presses out a 

tone 
That subtly sweetens all the air, and brings unto his 

own 
The lower and the sharper pitch, discordant, of the rest ; 



42 

He rises, and is missed ; and now his mastery stands 
confessed. 



O friends, — few friends that still are left, — how fast 

the lights are going, 
Going out, that made this life a scene with love and 

beauty glowing ! 
How oft for some one near and dear the plumed chariot 

black, 
That holdeth only one at once, hath called ! 'Twill soon 

come back. 
God make our waning lamps meanwhile with holy oil 

burn steady ; 
And let us have no care but this, that we "be also 

ready ! " 



E. L. (B.) D. 

March 22D, 1888. 

Treading down the myrtles, tearing off the roses, 

trampling on the laurels, Death breaks forth again : 
" Daughter, leave thy father ; leave, young wife, thy 

husband ; mother, leave thy nursling ; let them 

weep in vain. 
Tear thyself, beloved, from the loving heart-strings, more 

than may be counted, with thine own entwined, 
By the happy Years, — the Years forever ended ; — 

leave them quivering, broken, strained and racked 

behind. 



43 

Mirth, be turned to mourning ; songs, give place to 

dirges ; sweet, sweet voice, be hushed ; cunning 

hand, be still. 
Mortals, loose your clinging, helpless arms around her, 

till on you in turn I come to wreak my will, 
I am deaf ; I cannot hear your supplications. Know me, 

I am Azrael ; and my sword of steel 
Maketh wounds no creature and no balm in Gilead, Time 

nor Space, but only, only I can heal ! " 

Tolling on, and tolling, 'mid that proclamation, many a 

soul makes answer, like a funeral bell, 
Unto many another : " Many a Joy died with her ; let us 

toll for Joy and her an endless knell. 
Fair and good and dear ones still we see around us ; but 

another like her we shall see no more, 
Till we stand beside her, past all death and sorrow, clad 

in glistering raiment on the further shore." 

Father of our Saviour, take her to Thy mercy, where 
Thou keepest round Thee spirits like her own ; 

Let her be a ready, most fleet-pinioned angel, messages 
of blessing to bring us from Thy throne. 

For while yet unfledged, with her wings fast folded, on 
the earth among us, late she walked and stood, 

Oft she softly trod the lowland paths of bounty, busied 
with noiseless ministries of good. 

Give her for her fever, to quench her thirst forever, liv- 
ing water flowing from Life's brimming fount. 

Let the tomb not hold her, nor winding-sheet enfold her 
soul from climbing straightway to Thy holy mount. 



44 

From the Shadow's valley to the pastures sunny, let her 

by the Shepherd tenderly be led, 
Following him forever wheresoe'er he goeth, where his 

whitest lambs are folded and are fed. 
In the very far-off land, in all His beauty, show the 

King unto her opened, yearning eyes ; 
Wake her voice anew to join with those of seraphs in 

the Hallelujah Chorus of the skies. 



THE DUVENECK MONUMENT. 

(A TRANSLATION OF A MARBLE.) 

" Like some white, stately lily sweet, cut down 
To deck a minster, left where it was thrown, — 
So fair, so pure, so calm ! — beloved one, why 
Through the long years thus lonely dost thou lie ? " 

" My tender life's brief course of beauty run, 
I wait in peace my husband and my son. 
Why should I haste ? I need but rise and stand 
And raise my ready palm-branch in my hand, — 
I know that I need only ope my eyes, — 
To see the opening gates of Paradise, — 
I, tranced in rest, without or sigh or breath, 
Secure of heaven and satisfied with death." 



45 



HENRY WILDER FOOTE. 

Ascension Eve, i88g. 

This holy week, that saw his Master rise, 
Hath summoned him to follow to the skies. 
Oh happy servant, who hast kept the faith 
And gone to gain the crown of life through death ! 
Henceforth thy monumental church shall be, 
Unto our hearts, a cenotaph of thee. 

(God keep it sacred still from brazen lungs 
Of scorners, and the sacrilegious tongues 
That, under stolen colours, in his Lord's 
Dishonoured name, deny His works and words ! ) 

Since first he lifted, 'mid its reverend walls, 
That pure young voice, which Memory still recalls 
As if Timotheus spake in hallowed youth, 
How many offices of love and truth 
Has he fulfilled, whom earth shall see no more 
Till death is dead, and grief and time are o'er ! 

This servant of the Lord, apart from strife, 
In bonds of peace and righteousness of life, 
Sought unity of spirit with them all 
Who, in the Holy Church Catholical 
That loves its Saviour in sincerity, — 
Though called by various names, — may boast to be. 
He firm, if somewhat lonely, at his post 



4 6 

Stood at the parting of the twofold host, 

To worship God, the Father and the One, 

And seek Him in His Spirit, through His Son, 

In primitive belief that did not heed 

Triune additions to the "Apostles' Creed," 

Nor ever sought more lawless liberty 

Than that wherewith Christ Jesus made him free. 

A garb of gentleness his manhood wore, 
Which clad it like a silken mantle o'er 
Proof-armour, — the whole armour of the Lord ; 
And true he was, in thought and deed and word, 
And strong in faith that felt, but could not fear ; 
(Not theirs who in the spring-time of their year, 
In childish surety 'neath a morn's sweet sky, 
Trust in — they scarce know what and know not 

why — 
Because they're happy, but, in boist'rous air, 
Let go their hold and drown in black despair ; ) 
His proved a goodly anchor when the sun 
Was clouded, and his night came down at noon, — 
A loyal, manful faith that paced the deck, 
And smiled secure upon life's sinking wreck, 
Because it saw the Son of God draw nigh 
With hands out-stretched, and heard Him say, "'Tis I.'» 

Gone to be like Him, — with him where He is ! — 
God send us all a fate so blest as this ! 



47 



M. D. F. 

February 15TH, 1890. 

Oh Death and Life ! Oh wondrous mystery ! 
This army great of mortals that we be 
Are marching, step by step and day by day, 
Along one common way 

To the undiscovered country from whose bourn 
No traveller doth return ; 
And, at the self -same speed, alike we come 
On towards one goal, or with the baby's crawl 
Or strong man's stride ; and some 
Are nearer to the front, and that is all ! 

And you whose seventh decade hath been passed. 
My mates, — perhaps your last, — 
We are like fledged birds fluttering on the brim 
Of their fast-emptying nest, 
That soon the air must swim 
And seek elsewhere their rest. 
Who'll be the next to fly ? — 
Or thou, or thou, or I ? — 
What matter, — if we meet beyond the sky 
Again and sing together, by-and-by ? — 

And yet, and yet, — 
Love hopes, but can't forget. 
Nature is nature ; and the tears will flow 
For some who go, 



4 8 

If late, too soon 

In their sweet afternoon, 

And cast a sudden twilight o'er the day, 

And leave a strange new darkness round our way. 

Some must be lonely ere they reach the end. 

And thou art gone, O friend, 
Courtly and mild and fair, 
Of alabaster face and snowy hair, 
Brave heart and merry mind, 
Constant and kind, 
Unchanging to thy latest breath, 
And smiling in the face of Age and Death ! 

Long danced her graceful bark 
Alike o'er sunny and o'er stormy seas, 
And proved a trusty ark 

To shipwrecked lives that found there aid and ease, 
Nor ever clung to her in vain, 
Pitiless only to her own mute pain. 

Cover her vestal form with clustering flowers, 
Fresh as from Eden's bowers ; 
And bear it by her home, 
Henceforth no more to roam. 
Let the old church she served so long and well 
Bid peal for her, once more, its solemn bell, 
And holy Childhood sing 
Till the high roof doth ring, 
As if a seraph's voice 
Did at her soaring up to heaven rejoice. 



49 

And call on " Angels, ever bright and fair,' 1 
To take her to their care. 



S. G. T. 

GEMMA . 
May 26th, 1890. 

While lads and maids together walk, 
And of their coming summer talk, 
And laugh 'mid buds on every hand, 
And all the world seems fairy-land, 

From earthly day, from earthly night, 
One gentle spirit takes her flight ; 
For fleetest oft are sweetest things, 
And angels always have their wings. 

Beloved and loving, safe she goes 
From earth's temptations, joys, and woes, 
Nor stays to mix with mortal strife 
Her soul unstained, — unsaddened life. 

No wandering lamb, — we need not doubt 
Her Shepherd's voice hath called her out ; 
She only leaves his fold below 
Unto his uplands bright to go. 

Fair flower of Italy, thy form, 
Transplanted to our land of storm, 
To us our sepulchre endears, — 
Thy bed well watered by our tears. 



5° 



E. S. N. 

June 24TH, 1891. 

"Though younger, yet my guide, 
What thoughtful friendship on thy death-bed died! 
Whilst thou wast by my side, 
Autumnal days still breathed a vernal breath ; 

HOW LIKE A CHARM THY LIFE TO ME SUPPLIED 

All waste and injury of time and tide ; 

How LIKE a DISENCHANTMENT was thy death! " 

Leave her roses blooming where she loved to tend them ; 

Asphodel and amaranth must we seek to-day ; 
Into God's own garden she, so soon transplanted 

'Mid its choicest blossoms, is gone from us away ! 

Loving friend and trusting, lifter of the lowly, 
Helper of the helpless, seeker of the lone, 

Wise, strong, playful, racy, tender, sweet, and holy, — 
So the angels saw her and claimed her as their own. 

This alone' s the wonder, that so long we kept her 
From her skyey kindred. For her saintly feet, 

Earth seemed scarce fit treacling ; stars and suns a 
pavement, 
In the courts of heaven, shall make for her more meet. 

Home and church and country, still how well she loved 
them, 
Walking mildly fearless along her shady road ! 
Sorrowing yet rejoicing, never crushed though chast- 
ened, 
On she bore unfaltering, alone, life's weighty load ; 



5i 

Till a mightier Hand did, suddenly and softly, 
Take from her her burdens, and forever down 

Lay them from the loyal hold that, never spurning 
Crosses, now receiveth in turn the palm and crown. 



How shall we outlivers face the empty moments, 

Days, weeks, months, and twelvemonths, emptied all 
of her ? — 

Live without the meetings, kind and hearty greetings, 
Spoken words and written, wont our souls to stir ? — 

Nay, what soul that loved her, grovelling in its mourning, 
Dares to shame her memory, generous, brave, and 
true ? 

Rather let us follow, vowing on her gravestone 
Like her, till we reach her, to strive to be and do. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

August 12TH, 1891. 

" Cui . . . 
Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas 

quando ullum inveniet parem ? 
multis ille bonis flebilis occidit." 

The flag he loved' s at half-mast ; and the bell 
Doth toll his knell, — 

The Cambridge bell, so oft that told his hours 
Through Elmwood's bowers, — 
Toll, bell ; 
Toll long ; toll well ! 



52 

The bell that told unto his youthful ear 
The time most dear 

When tasks were ended, and his steps might rove 
To seek his love. 

It told the hour that bore her to her doom, 
Her early tomb. 
Toll, bell ; 
Toll long ; toll well ! 

It broke into the hush, to tell the flights 
Of lone, dark nights, 

While the young scholar bent his eager looks 
On rare, deep books ; 

And, when his noble face was growing wan, 
It told of dawn, 

As through the dewy leaves the earliest bird 
Was softly heard. 

It struck upon him strangely often, when 
His flying pen 

Fled o'er the pages that record his name 
For lasting fame, 

And served his country in her sorest needs, 
When words were deeds, — 

When others' ears were dull, and others' tongues 
Dumb, to her wrongs. 
Toll, bell ; 
Toll long ; toll well ! 

It told the merry hours when happy guests, 
With talk and jests 
Not all unworthy of the banquet's lord, 



53 

Sat round his board. 

It told the hour when Friendship's aching heart 

Let him depart 

To dignify, upon a foreign strand, 

His native land. 

Its tone was homelike, with fresh honours when 

He came again. 

Toll, bell ; 

Toll long; ; toll well ! 



i t> > 



It broke the silence, to his dying ear, 
Solemn and clear, 

To tell how surely still, or slow or fast, 
Pain's moments passed. 
It told the hour when in his place there lay 
A form of clay, 

And from his goodly heritage for aye 
He went away, — 

Oh patriot ! — poet ! — carrying his renown, 
From our reft town. 
It tells that, to the City of the Dead, 
His hearse-horse' tread 
Dully his cold and idle feet doth bear 
Along the fair, 

Familiar ways that late they ]oved to take, 
For memory's sake 

Of joyous childhood and the days of yore, — 
Shall take no more ! — 
Oh, toll his knell ! 
Toll, bell ; 
Toll long ; toll well ! 



54 



C. (E.) P. 

ArRii. i8th, 1892. 
Sic Transit. 

The joys and sorrows of this world are past. 

The dark bright eyes have smiled and wept their last. 

The last sweet word 
Hath from those rare, benignant lips been heard. 

Oh queenliness and kindness, love and grace ! 
Oh stately, noble form and beauteous face ! 

Must these but seem 
Henceforth, for aye, a phantasm and a dream ? 

Oh realm of shades, why rob our emptying earth ? 
Oh realm so rich already, from our dearth 

Why take one more, — 
So fair, so dear, — unto the gone before ? 

Time perfected,- — not claimed again, — her charms. 
Forbear, O Death ! too rash thy unsparing arms ! 

Leave her to show 
What were the marvels of the long ago. 



Too precious to be longer left below, 

Where fierce suns smite and raging tempests blow, 

And oft the heart, 
That loves, must from its well-beloved part, 



55 

Set in God's treasure-house high o'er the range, 
And cruel, marring hands of Age and Change, 

Should heaven not be 
A fitter place than earth for such as she ? 

Let all give thanks, who once in her were blest,- 
Her waking glory be, her sleep be rest. 

Let Grief be dumb, 
And heard her Saviour's call, ''Behold, I come! 



ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY. 

March ioth, 1893. 

A strong man hath rejoicing run his race. 

His force was not abated, eye not dim. 

Mourn ye that ye no more shall see his face ; 

Weep for yourselves, but, oh, weep not for him ! 

His sun was ne'er eclipsed ; it set in glory 

Nigh to the ending of life's longest day. 

Nor this a trivial chapter in his story, 

That he stood fast, when others fell away, — 

Stood but the higher for the ebb around, 

As some lone island loftiest at low tide. 

Among too many faithless, faithful found, 

Christ's trusty soldier in the service died. 
Being dead, he like the great apostle saith, 
"My course I've finished ; I have kept the faith ! 



56 



M. (B.) D. 

June 4TH, 1893. 
LILIES OF THE VALLEY. 

Bring lilies, on her wedding-day, 
To one as pure and sweet as they, — 

Whom long the day's return shall find, 
As summer, bright and warm and kind. 

To her who changes not, alway 
Bring lilies on her wedding-day. 

More lilies ! — Will she hail them ? — Nay, 
This wedding-day's her dying day ! 

Oh loving, true, and noble friend, 
Of wedding-days, is this the end ? 

As through the Valley thou dost fare, 
Be Lilies and no Shadow there. 

Called to the Marriage of the King, 
Unto His feast, thy lilies bring. 



57 



E. (L.) L. 

March 28th, 1894. 

As the Great Bishop walked awhile below 
In glorious, boundless, guardian energy, 
As if, to eyes of mortal men, to show 
What might the fashion of the angels be ; 
So did the saint, who now hath followed him, 
Display their ministering tenderness and grace 
On earth. Go, seraph, to the seraphim, 
And take with them, in peace, thy welcoming place. 
Bear with thee, up to welcoming paradise, 
Thy more than earthly sweetness. Thou hast trod 
Amid this world's allurements, calm and wise, 
And found unswervingly thy way to God 

O'er slippery, dazzling heights of love and beauty, 
With thy soft hand upon the clew of duty. 



E. R. (C.) D. 

May 9TH, 1894. 

Rare, ardent, lofty, gracious, pure, and true, 
She goes from us whose fine hand held the keys 
Unlocking inner chambers oped to few, 
In hearts that knew her, sadly leaving these 
Henceforward empty, haunted by her ghost ! — 
Nay, rather let us hallow there a fane 
Unto the dear and vanished one, — not lost, — 



58 

Where, till we see her noble face again, 
Love oft shall hasten with a reverent foot, 
(That never Fear nor Doubt may enter in, 
The doors in sacred stillness being shut, — 
The world shut out, with all its jarring din, — ) 
To hold sweet converse with her memory 
And Faith, that speaks reunions by and by. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 

October 7TH, 1894- 

Last wearer of thick laurels, he is gone ! 
The third of our great triad has withdrawn. 
Follows his fellows, he, beyond our ken, 
Who, from first memories of gray-haired men, 
With lofty verse and endless kindly mirth, 
So long hath gladdened and ennobled earth. 
No more his pleased admirers will he greet, 
Courteous and gay, in brightening hall or street. 
Without his wit to make the banquet shine, 
How dull the speech, unsparkling were the wine ! 
How bleak and bare the autumn looks to-day, 
As the old poet's form is borne away ! 
Some tears — and rain, — then life again shuts in, — 
Life that shall be no more as life hath been. 

Man dies. God lives and, while the world doth stand, 
Still fashions genius with His mighty hand. 
New generations still shall see arise 



59 

Their singers new, and laud them to the skies, 
And say their present doth surpass our past. 
Not so shall we while lingering life shall last. 
The heart hath its own judgments, as the brain, 
And loves its long-loved best, in peace or pain. 

Yet turn we from ourselves and selfish grief, 
In thankfulness for him, to find relief, — 
Well-born, well-reared, on free New England's soil 
Trained by the great of old to generous toil, — 
Toil crowned by early, life-long bliss and fame, — 
And led, by many a still-attained aim, 
Through prosperous manhood, to old age that ends 
With " honour, love, obedience, troops of friends," 
And softly stops, most like a timely clock 
Whose weights have but run down without a shock,- 
Nor too much mourn that he " at length is free, 
Leaving his outgrown shell by life's unresting sea." 



A. C. L. 

November 14TH, 1894. 

Once more the blind, black, wain has come 
To empty one more dear old home ; 
And many hearts a sad farewell 
Beat, heavy as a passingbell. 
With her, how many worths and charms 
The angels gather to their arms ! 
How well did she the Scripture live, 



6o 

" Receiving freely, freely give " ! 
Not raiment only, food, or pelf, — 
She gave her thought, her heart, herself, 
To needy ones, — endowed to bless 
With stores of bliss and blessedness. — 

That lovely presence, fair and fine, 
A gentle sainthood's fitting shrine ! — 
That delicate and subtle grace, 
An heirloom from an honoured race ! — 
That life, that read its quiet story 
In God's own ear, to God's own glory 
And, on its very latest page, 
A vivid, beautiful old age ! — 
That soul in lofty lowliness, 
Reflecting heaven's high holiness, 
As some uplifted mountain lake, 
While down below the thunders break, 
Receives into its pure, deep breast 
The sun and moon in peace to rest ! — 
That little star, in darkest night, 
Still shone around with its own light ! — 

Cherished and choice, at last she goes, 
Like to some rare ancestral rose, 
Which many a summer has alone 
Within an antique garden blown, 
And when it dieth leaves behind 
No more on earth of its own kind. 

When once again her sweet blue eyes 
Are opened, o'er the sweet blue skies, 



6i 

Her change, at first, how will she know, 
To heaven above from heaven below ? — 
Those loving eyes will weep no more 
For friends and kindred gone before, 
But beam with joy to see them stand 
Safe at her risen Lord's right hand. 



M. S. F. 

April 29th, i8q'' 

Blithe, bounteous, warm, and making many glad 
With thine own gladness, — though thou knew'st it not,- 
Of late, now makest thou as many sad. 
So, when the sun shines, shineth many a spot, 
Half the world over, and looks gay and bright 
Only because he so much brighter is, 
But, when he goes to bed, puts out its light, — 
All blinded with the vanishing of his. — 
'Twas scarce thy time to set, when mists arose 
Up from a sudden grave, dear human sun, 
To shut thee out ; and, lo, earth dusky shows ! — 
But, ere our evening shower of tears is done, 
Thy memory sweet kindles an after-glow 
To cheer us as our homeward way we go. 



02 



M. (T.) C. 

MINNA . 
January 25TH, 1897. 

A year gone by since Death bade hearts to break, — 
A gloomy twelvemonth traversed, — can it be ? — 

Since his black house he opened for thy sake, 
Oh child of Air and Fire, and Italy! 

Why did not Time stand still, with thy dear heart ? 

How deadened seems this rush of earthly life, 
Wherein thou hast no longer lot or part, 

Glee for its joys or courage for its strife ! 

So different from the common human band, 

How could we ever dream thou wert our own, — 

Thou bright, swift vision out of fairy-land, 

That flashed and never faded, but wert flown ? — 

The pale, stern angel thrusts our Age aside ; 

" Give place ! " he cries. We wait with bated breath ; 
Lonely and lonelier yet, our time we bide. 

The young and beautiful sweep by to Death, 

Whose kisses were so sweet upon our lips ; 

Whose ready love our spirits' yearnings fed ; 
Whose eyes met ours, undimmed by drear eclipse ; 

So lately here ! — so soon — forever fled ! 

Pity is not for thee, but for our fates, 

Of this stripped world the lingering denizens. 



63 

Thou hast but turned from us to find thy mates. 
How grand the realm that hath such citizens ! 



We know that what God doeth is well done ; 

Have faith, my soul ; our dwelling is not here 
We shall be called for when the rest are gone. 

When all the lamps go out, the dawn is near. 



M. E. (N.) W. 

April 13th, 1897. 

Ye angels that, to meet a soul departed, 

Troop forth with waving palms, 
Bring down to those she leaveth broken-hearted 

Your healing balms. 

To dwell among the saints has flown the saintly ;. 

The heavenly, to the skies. 
We see a blank beside us, lifting faintly 

Tear-blinded eyes. 

The Sower spake a word. He was not fickle, 

But, when the fruit was come 
Of her ripe perfectness, put in the sickle 

For harvest-home. 

The seeker of the lost, friend of the friendless, 

True handmaid to her Lord, 
Is gone in God's good time to raptures endless, 

To her reward. 



6 4 

Without the light that ever shone around her, 

Although our paths be dim, 
We may not grudge that 'mid their ranks have found her, 

The seraphim. 

Oh " elect lady," tender, noble, gracious, 

Large-hearted, warm, and sweet, 
The courts of heaven are not too fair and spacious 

For thy pure feet ! 

But, oh, the emptied arms of dear Love, yearning ! — 

The desolated hearth ! — 
Our Father, through our woe unto Thee turning, 

Lead us from earth ! 



S. G. C. 

February 27TH, 189S. 

Oh nightingale of rare unearthly song, 
For which our ears henceforth must vainly long ! 
Oh fair and calm as moon-beams,* and as bright, 
Art thou gone out unto the blind, deaf Night ? — 
Ah, no, beloved ! Let us rather say, 
Gone up into the everlasting Day, — 
Gone up to father, mother, kin, and friend, 
Crowning a gracious course with gracious end, 
Amid the saints that, faithful unto death, 
Have willingly resigned their innocent breath, 
And, having spent their life to cheer and bless, 
Died of their own dear self-devotedness. 

► See Note VIII. 



65 



M. (L.) P. 

June ist, i 

I iRATO m' B II. SONNO. 
Men IK1-: i in-; 'i. DANNO B la VBRGOGNA Di'KA, 
Non VKliRK, NON SBNTIR, M'BGRAN VENTURA* 
PERU N()N MI OESTAR." 

Sister of poets, daughter of a saint, 
" Widow indeed " of one meet for thy mate, 
A hero's mother, with a heart not faint, 
Though ever bleeding for his early fate, 
Thou peerless creature, patriot, woman, friend, 
The long and glorious sunset of thy years, 
Why should it ever come unto an end, 
And leave us night and loneliness and tears? — 
Nay, close her beauteous eyes and, safe with Death, 
Let her depart ; nor call her back again, 
With startled glances and with shudd'ring breath, 
To stay with us and brook a patriot's pain. 
Lot her not see, — in timely peace inurned, — 
Her country's eagle to a vulture turned ! 



66 



S. P. (L.) B. 

December 30TH, 1S99. 

While sorrow swells in many a labouring breast, 
A noble citizen is gone to rest. 
A loyal daughter of a rare old town, 
She sought its welfare as she sought her own. 
With gracious dignity she held her place, 
An honoured scion of an honoured race. 
She took the joys that favouring Fortune sent , 
And showered them round her wheresoe'er she went 
And, 'mid those various joys at her command, 
She grasped life's duties with an eager hand. 
Unmarred by Age, unspoiled by thievish Time, 
Calm she withdrew in all her bounteous prime. 
Within the hoary church, clue rites be paid, — 
Where she so oft her orisons hath made, — 
To soothe and hallow there the grieving throng 
With prayer and Holy Writ and solemn song ; 
Then lay her soft, with flowers, beneath the sod, 
A reverent handmaid of the Son of God. 



6; 



ROBERT GOULD SHAW. 

Fort Wagner, July i8th, 1863. 

St. Gaudens' wondrous elegy in bronze 
Hallows to holy ground the gazing street, 
And bids us haste to pay sad orisons, 
As 'twere to put the shoes from off our feet, 
(If we are worthy to behold and feel 
Youth, faith, and righteousness and death and doom,) 
And in ennobling humbleness to kneel, 
Then rise and follow to, and through, the tomb. 
Oh, let us linger near till we have made 
Some emulous consecration of the soul 
To press henceforth, unboastful, unafraid, 
Guided by Duty towards her unseen goal, 
As march forever here, in love and awe, 
These straining soldiers of the martyr Shaw ! 



68 



THE YEAR OF DEATHS. 

April, 1881-82. 

All ye whose hearts henceforth must buried lie 
In the most sacred earth of some dear grave, 
Now that this Year of Deaths hath hurried by, 
What joy, what hope, what comfort can we have? — 
" What joy ? " — Nay, that the dead in Christ arise, 
And that our heavy sorrow is not theirs, — 
That God doth wipe all tears from their loved eyes, 
And to hosannas turn their patient prayers. — 
" What comfort ? " — That the time henceforth is short. - 
" What hope ? " — While we are waiting, to fulfil 
Their and our Father's will in such a sort 
That we may be scarce parted, but, until 

Our death is laid with theirs beneath the sod, 
Our life be hid with theirs, with Christ in God. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



ERNEST'S VISION. 

"The night cometh, wherein no man can work." 

The Gospel of St. John, ix. 4. 
" Et j'ai vu, comme une ombre vaine, 
S'eVanouir mon beau printemps." 

Millevoye. 

A man, — one day in early summer-time, — 
Who scarce had more than manhood's threshold crossed, 
Entered a tangled wood whose drooping boughs 
Were, in their own green darkness, hid and lost, 
And laid him down upon a bank of thyme ; 
And if with pious thought to pay his vows, 
Or spent with chasing still elusive game, 
Or painfully to rid him of Love's dart 
Where none should see his throes, he thither came, 
Or haply to repent him for some sin, 
Whose light embrace no tinge of shame could win 
Save from the vestal Conscience' purest cheek, 
'Twere hard to guess. He lay and did not speak. 
Lips beautiful as his not often need, — 
Breathing as his of love and loyalty, — 
Long in sweet, bootless eloquence to plead 
With earthly, sure, or heavenly deity. 

Some inward grief was playing on his heart, 
Sweeping its strings discordantly, 'twas plain ; 
Yet his young noble countenance did wear, 
In all its pain, nor anger nor despair ; 
But there enthroned a lofty Patience sate 
Triumphant queen and, bidding him disdain 



72 

E'en to the deaf -eared dryads to complain, 
Spake that, had all the bitterness of fate, 
Pressed in one brimming cup, been given to him, 
He with a blessing would have kissed the rim, 
And in the bitter dregs new vigour found. 

While thus he lay, the huge trees crowding round 
Did screen him from the glowing world without. 
They reared their shafts of fibrous granite hoar, 
With fretted lichens stuccoed crisply o'er, 
Like monumental columns all about, 
And o'er him waved their sombrous canopy, 
Dark as the shaking curtains of a hearse ; 
And o'er him crept a chilness and an awe, — 
Within him a bewilderment and strife. 
Within him powers seemed stirred, that ne'er till then 
His loftiest wish had dreamed of, struggling all 
Beneath the torpid pressure of a pall, 
Like drowsy cradled babes that wake and cry 
At first, when rocks and sings the officious nurse, 
Then helplessly to heavier slumber yield. 
He felt and mused and marvelled helplessly. 

He saw the true nobility of life, 
As he had never seen that hour until, — 
Fair, bright, and soft and unattainable, — 
Like a fair city on a sunset hill, 
Seen from a low, damp vale, long miles away, 
Across a bridgeless stream without a boat. 
His soul seemed raised, his body sinking fast ; 
And all was changeful, undefined, and new. 



73 

Time flapped his dying wings. Then Time was not. 
Eternity rose on his wildered view 
And beckoned him. He suddenly beheld ; 
And 'twas a cypress-grove wherein he lay. 
On him a horror of thick darkness fell. 
The sounding silence rang a stilly knell. 
He sprang ; he shook himself and, staring, saw 
The stealthy Night, that seals the eyes of men 
In sleep that never wakes to earthly morn, 
Bent over him ! A poppy wreath she held 
In one hand ; in her left a torch was borne, 
Inverted, folding her in shrouding smoke, 
Which all his sense confused in torpor numb. 
Through its drear volumes, dimly were revealed 
Her marble features inexpressible, 
Fixed as a statue's or a day-old corse', 
And on them, 'neath a shade of soft remorse, 
The unutterable breathlessness and hush 
Of one who sees tremendous things to come ; 
When pantingly, amid the mighty rush 
Of feeling that pursued him from the past, 
With tongue which scarce could frame its speech, he 

spoke 
His passionate speech unto the awful nun ; 
And thus his incoherent speech he won : 

" Not yet, untimely Night, 
Strangle with fingers black the beauteous Day ; 
Nor scare my manhood's blessed heat and light, 
With bats and hooting screech-owls, all away ! 
The narrow house is not the house for me. 



74 

My deeds have graven yet no monument. 

Avaunt ! I may not yet thy captive be, 

Within a nameless grave's lone darkness pent ! 

How should my swelling hopes and thoughts find room 

In the strait compass of a narrow tomb ? 

" My work is scarce begun ! 
At merry dawn I rose, o'er violet turf 
To chase the butterflies. Where billows run 
With mighty shouts, I ran amid the surf 
Along the shallow shore, with shouts as gay, 
To catch the rainbow hues that in them play, 
And bounded back, with cold and empty hands 
And flying steps across the slippery sands. 
Then o'er earth's purest lakes and streams I hung, 
And gazed into the glassy depths below, 
To seize the bright reflections in them flung 
By heavenly things, and let their substance go. 
And then I roved for flowers the woodland round ; 
Some withered soon ; and some, they poisoned me. 
My rose-leaves fell, and I with thorns was crowned ; 
So did my morning and my spring-time flee. 
The high sun climbs the basking landscape o'er, 
Poised on wide wings of glory plumed with rays ; 
And I am learn'd, but not in heavenly lore ; 
And I have sung, but tame and puerile lays, 
Unmeet to render to my Sovereign's praise ; 
And I have toiled, but plied my fruitless toil 
Scarce in His clustered vineyard's fertile soil. 
Wouldst drag me to His presence, bringing naught ? — 
No sacrifice ? — mine offering all unwrought ? — 



75 

" What have I done for Man, 
To pay the mighty debt that all men owe, 
Since first my life began 
And others* feet, in patience, to and fro 
My crying helplessness's burden bore ? 
For me the bard has sung, the sage has thought ; 
For me the saint hath prayed, the statesman planned ; 
For me the hero, bleeding, freed the land. 
Artist and artisan alike have wrought 
To bid me, soul and body, to the feast. 
Of all their cares partaking, I forgot, 
In the good cheer they gave, to pay my scot. 
Oh, let me go to strive to clear that score, — 
Not eat and drink and die, as dies the beast ! 

" Blind Night, canst thou not see 
My days have but a preparation been ? — 
But not for thee ! I cannot stay with thee ! — 
A stammering prologue only, they have said, 
To life's grand drama, nor one act have played. 
But lately I was forth amidst the din 
Of toil and pleasure with my comrades free ; 
And how I hither came, I know not well. 
These groves are cool ; and I was worn and warm ; 
I had no thought of sojourn long nor harm ; 
I dreamed not that thy dread resort was here, 
Hid from life's sunny ways and yet so near, 
Nor ever did with wilful foot intrude, 
Nor call thee from thy sacred solitude 
With noise of wild debauch or brawlings fell. 
Release me. Loose thine unprovoked spell. 



76 

Go, still the peevish cries of fretful pain ; 
To coward souls, thy dull nepenthe give. 
I must, though bleeding, to the fight again. 
Loose me ; for I am bold and dare to live ! 
Take waiting saints ; and let me, by delay, 
Become to thee at last a worthier prey. 

" Grant me reprieve ! I ask not full discharge, 
But promise duly to return at length, 
And sue no more on earth to go at large. 
Fevered my veins, yet full of feverish strength. 
The air without is full of June and life, 
Of song and bloom and springing perfume rife. 
I hear the rushing of the whetted scythe, 
Swept wide, with stride of pride, through thick rich 

grass ; 
I hear the birds' and mowers' chorus blithe ; 
And unseen waters warbling near me pass. 
On this still bed of grave-like greensward laid, 
The free wind comes to me with balmy breath. 
E'en the dark waving of the cypress shade 
Seems wooing me to healing rest beneath, 
More than unto the mouldy sleep of death. 

" Thou canst not be my foe ! 
Night, ministrant of heavenly rest, oh, no ! 
Thou didst but o'er me bend a little space, 
A faint and frightened waif in thy domain, 
That my light soul, in gazing on thy face, 
Some touch of awe and soberness might gain. 
Now will thy shadow pass from me ; and I, 



77 

Composed, renewed, and active and serene, 

As one whose nightly slumbers sweet have been, 

Shall cheerly forth among mankind again. 

Forgive my chiding ; 'twas the voice of Dread 

Run wild with roaming o'er the barren past ; 

Nor turn from me forever ; but at last, 

When the broad harvest moon looks solemnly 

On hushed and stubbled fields and, from the mead, 

White ghostly mists climb upward, vanishing ; 

When the low-tolling curfew-bell doth ring ; 

When I have helped my fellow-husbandmen 

And gifted them and kindly bid good-e'en ; 

When my full groaning wains 

Wait, laden for the garners of my King 

With store of golden grains 

Sprinkled with dropping red and yellow leaves, 

And my tired limbs lie 'mid the rustling sheaves ; 

When the first hoar-frosts twinkle in my hair ; 

No more untimely then, nor grim as erst, 

Come thou, the Night supreme, 

Floating with downy foot down heaven's long stair, 

On spangled, blue, dark pinions, dim at first 

In the high distance, then distinct and near. 

Lull me with songs unearthly to my rest ; 

And bear me upward on thy slumberous breast, 

Smiling and lost in an Elysian dream, 

To wake and find reality more dear. 



78 



THE CHAPEL. 

O God, make Thou my soul into a church, — 
One little chapel in the church of Christ, — 

So cleanly ordered, with most narrow search, 
That angels white may be therein enticed. 

Uprear upon its front the Cross divine, 

Whose awful shadow scares the fiends away, — 

That heals the spirit, as the brazen sign 

Healed snake-stung flesh in Israel's pilgrim day. 

Bid heavenly Yearnings build its mounting spire 
In sight of earth, but nearer to the skies, — 

In hearing of the legions of my Sire, 

For fear its foes should take it by surprise. 

There post, to keep it for the heavenly King, 

Conscience, the watchman, high amid the bells, - 

The prayer-bells, — timely larums now to ring, 
Then of those vanquished foes to toll the knells. 

Through its strait gates let earthly Feelings come, 
To issue thence assoiled and sanctified, — 

To do Thy work in market-place or home, 
And sow Thy blessings round on every side. 

But there let heavenly Wisdom, porter, reign, 
Firm to shut out all lawless Fantasies, 



79 

That now run riot in too many a fane, — 
False Doctrines, — young or aged Heresies. 

Bid him be wary. But beside him still 
Let his soft sister, Mercy, meekly stand, 

A ready almoner to clothe or fill 

The bare or hungry with an eager hand. 

Within let many a lofty image be 

Of such as not in vain have sighed and striven, 
With upward prayerful arms to point to me 

The pathway that they climbed from earth to heaven. 

Within set Thou a font, whose weeping brim 

Shall wash away earth's dust that soils the place, 

With living waters never dry nor dim, 

That gush from the deep well-springs of Thy grace, 

Where every Hope and Purpose, that is born 

Within me, straightway brought, shall christened be ; 

And be the sponsors, viewless spirits sworn 
Unto Thy service everlastingly. 

On my heart's fleshly tables lifted high, 

The Pater-Noster write, — the Law, — the Creed, 

In golden characters that aye the Eye, 

That sees in secret, may untarnished read. 

There let the Book of Life be opened well, — 
The Shekinah still brooding o'er it be, — 

To show its pictures wide of heaven and hell, 

With the strait path that threads the world to Thee. 



8o 

Let heaven at the clear windows, vapourless 
Look in, expectant, near, and calm and blue, 

And more and more the Sun of Righteousness, 

With peace and pardon in His beams, shine through 

To gild the tomb-stones of dead Faults, and see 
The marble cheek of Penitence grow bright, 

Fixed o'er them with clasped hands and kneeling knee 
And face upturned to meet the searching light. 

Beneath the roof let Passion's voice be dumb, 
Or straightway hushed by Reverence and Faith, 

To hear in clearness, through the stillness, come 
Each word the still small Voice unearthly saith. 

To my Thoughts' thronging congregation there, 
Then let Thine angels, in that stillness, preach 

The laws the heavens are ruled by, — honour fair 
And their own full-grown public spirit teach : 

To love one's neighbour as one's self, — the same 
Love for one's virtue and one's neighbour's know, — - 

Honour that hateth falsehood more than shame, 
And treason more than any loss or woe. 

There solemnly let Truth to Love be wed, 
Sweet Tenderness to strong Self-mastery, 

To mountain-moving Faith meek Lowlihead, 
And fiery Zeal to melting Charity. 

Therein let funerals be celebrate 

Of childish Wishes, such as mortals grieve, 



8i 

Forever sung to rest with dirges great 
By Resignation chanting, " I Believe," 

And Loyalty, who from the dust doth rise 
To pitch his key to that of viewless choirs, 

That over-head in spreading harmonies, 

With hands untrembling, sweep their glorious lyres. 

" Thy will be done, — Thy will, not mine, — Thy will 
And mine ; for mine is Thine," — thus let him 
sing — 

" And Thine is mine ! " — from earth to heaven until 
The throbbing void doth with his triumph ring. 

There sometimes with a radiant seraph train, 

When earth without looks deathly, blank, and cold, 

Come down in warmth and wintergreen, and deign, 
Amid the snows, a Christmas feast to hold. 

Good-Fridays bring, when shineth fortune's sky 

In the spring heats of mine eternity, 
That chastened Pride and Greed within may die 

For love of Him who died for all and me, 

Followed by Easters when my life shall say, 

" Christ is arisen," in thought and word and deed, 

And show Him unto all who cross my way 

With wistful eyes and aching hearts that bleed. 

There shrive me at Thy dread confessional. 

There let Communions be with Christ, the head 
Of hosts, the militant and triumphal ; 

There let me kneeling eat the awful bread 



82 



He giveth that was broken for our sake, 
Worthily, all unmixed with earthly leavens, 

Until the walls give way, and way do make 
Unto the Church eternal in the heavens. 



GOD LEADS US ON. 

"I will lead them in paths they have not known." 

Isaiah xlii. 16. 

ISAIAH, prophet of the Lord, 
Of yore unto the Hebrew horde 
Spake, " God the Lord has pledged His word, 

Ye blind and lone, 
To lead you far from fear and wrath, 
And darkness that your spirit hath, — 
Pitfalls and prisons, — by a path 

Ye have not known." 

An echo still that utterance bears 
To us, the Promise' Gentile heirs, 
And murmurs hope 'mid griefs and cares ; 

God leads us on, — 
How oft, fulfilling it unsought ! — 
Lays hands upon our struggling doubt, 
And leads through fear to safety out 

By paths unknown. 

In Eden's Serpent-haunted bowers, 
We crown our idle heads with flowers : 
" Here will we sing away the hours, 

Till days be flown." 



§3 

In vain we lag with restive feet ; 
To bear the burden, and the heat 
Of suns that on His harvests beat, 
God leads us on. 

We pant and sweat in Mammon's hold ; 
We pawn our sordid souls for gold ; 
New dupes unto the Tempter old 

Are almost gone ; 
Our stooping spirits' wings are furled,— 
We, in the workshops of the world, 
Caught in its grinding wheels and whirled. 

God leads us on, 

Though torn, yet freed. Our wretched pay 
He wresteth from our hands away. 
" All souls are mine," the Lord doth say, 

" And not your own. 
Ye shall not sell, nor Satan buy, 
What to redeem Mine heir did die. 
False fiend, avoid ! "— He sees him fly, 

And leads us on. 

Death smites us through some dearer one ; 
We writhe upon a churchyard stone ; 
" Here will we lie and die," we moan. 

God leads us on, 
Unto the olive and the vine ; 
He heals us with his oil and wine ; 
Till once again our faces shine, 

Lit by His Son. 



8 4 

Father, Thy will be done. E'en so 
Lead ever on ; though we be slow 
To leave our pastime, toil, or woe, 

Still lead us on 
In safety, through earth's friends and foes, 
Her wedding feasts and funeral shows, — 
Till out of earth Thy pathway goes 

And heaven is won. 



SPRINGS IN THE DESERT. 

O thou Whom I name not, — whose blood-weeping 
heart 
Through thy dry eyes in secret I see, 
Divining its pangs by the mystical art 
That the Fates sternly taught unto me, — 

As a soft hand, that beats itself long and in vain 
On a locked iron grate, nor can win 
A welcome, nor e'en for its bruises and pain 
An answering word from within ; 

So the heart I behold, at Life's adamant gate 
Beating, knocks for Affection, shut out 
Alone, while the noon hurries on, and doth wait 
In patience and faintness and drought. 

The silence that maketh a shrine for thy grief, 
My tongue is too reverent to break ; 



35 

For every sad saint who thirsts like thee, relief 
Will I seek, though in chief for thy sake, 

As a bird from an oasis flying to sing 
To the desolate pilgrims, who stand 
At a loss in the desert, and show them the spring 
That weeps through the pitiless sand. 

The oasis needeth no song and no spade. 
In the waste let me delve, here and there 
Some lurking sweet source of refreshment and aid, 
If haply I may, to lay bare ; 

That, hither if ever thy footsteps shall stray, 
Thy spirit may comforted be, 
Drink the waters of healing that lie in thy way, 
Nor know that I meant them for thee : 



The Son was alone, yet the Father was nigh. 
The children who study the best, 
Have seats that are under the master's own eye, 
But somewhat aloof from the rest ; 

And many a young soul is from Friendship and Love 
Set apart in Time's school-room, to spell 
And learn the hard lessons that angels above 
Shall kiss it for knowing so well. 

The branch doth the vine-dresser prune, that shall bear 
His purple and wine, by and by ; 



86 

On the ruins of castles Man builds in the air, 
Are founded the mansions on high. 

The pale moon hangs over the sunshiny earth 
Unheeded and lonely all day, 
But night unto myriads of love-lights gives birth 
That throng round her companied way. 

The night draweth on. Thou shalt see the unseen 
And, rapt by the seraphim, rise 

To the place they have kept thee, their pinions between, 
In the fellowship dear of the skies. 



PETRA. 

" Ye without a shudder meet 
In the city's noonday street, 
Spirits sadder and more dread 
Than from out the clay have fled, 
Buried beyond hope of light, 
In the body's haunted night." 

/. R. Lowell: 

Set in crags of lurid red, 
Yawns a city of the dead. 
O'er them fiery Asia's sun 
Hurls his headlong splendours down ; 
Many-horned, with planted feet, 
Up they toss the dizzy heat, 
Till, in all, the shrinking eye 
Only sees one blazing sky. 

*See Note IX. 



*7 

Through the midst those crags are rent ; 
Through them drops the blank descent. 
Lo, midway 'twixt sky and ground, 
All with grand amazement crowned, 
Piles, by viewless workmen hewn, 
Starting through the living stone ! 
Here and there, above, below, 
Niche, fagade, and portico, 
Pyramid with blunted head, 
Climbing stair and colonnade, 
And, their graven fronts among, 
Words in a forgotten tongue ! 

Call them palaces, not tombs ! 
Surely these some princely gnomes 
Fashioned for their king's abode, 
Then heaved aloft their gorgeous load 
And, drunk with joy, elate and vain, 
Rent the earth's rough crust amain, 
And left a chink that that sharp spy, 
Quick-prating Fancy, might descry, 
And straight to envying man unfold 
The glories of the centre old. 

Tombs they were. Thy lonely search 
Follow through yon shady arch, — 
Through the gaping, speechless street, — 
Once their tenants' gay retreat 
Stood beside yon rushing river, — 
Stood as if to stand forever. 
There in careless merriment 



88 

Royally their days they spent, — 
Sports and feasts and jollity, — 
Served by slaves on bended knee. 
When their joys had reached their term, 
Royally they served the worm, 
Garnishing with rocky wreath 
Their grinning ghastliness beneath. 

To the grave their pomp was brought, 
And their viols' noise to naught. 
Silence deaf, their watcher, sat ; 
For her cresset, hung the bat. 
For their Tyrian curtains, spread 
Naked rock around each bed ; 
Rock beneath, and rock beside, 
Lay the pampered sons of pride, 
As the world's meek Saviour lay, 
Till angels rolled the stone away. 

Thrice the bones outlast the breath ; 
The longest life's a babe to Death. 
Wide-strown ruin marks the scene 
Of their blithe threescore and ten ; 
Wing'd ages scarce, with harmless plume, 
Fan their last fair house of gloom. 

Yet their very bones are gone. 
Rock and sky confront alone, 
O'er the narrow valley green, 
Pent these rugged walls between. 
All is strange, and all is still, 



39 

Save the murmur of the rill 

Vending — oriental trade — 

Water at the tamarisk shade, 

Or chaffering with the banterer free, 

The rosy oleander-tree, 

For some floating tresses more 

To deck the wave they swept before, 

Near the Arab boy, half seen 

Through the wild-vine's tent of green, 

Watching drowsily his flocks 

From his nook among the rocks. 



Fast amid men's hearths and homes 
Lies a desert filled with tombs : 
And their dismal cells surround 
Souls in stony durance bound, — 
Souls whose bodies play their part 
In the field, the church, the mart. 
By them runs life's busy din, 
But no sound can enter in ; 
Enters not the morning light, — 
Not the starry calm of night. 
Fiends have set their watch full sure ; 
Fiends have sealed the massy door, 
And without that rigid vail, — 
'Mid those rocks of Moussa's* Vale, 
As the vine with tendrils deft 
Sought, and found no entrance-cleft, — 
Hangs, in unprevailing strife, 
Human love on human life. 

* See Note X. 



90 

Who hath might to rend apart 
The stone that closes o'er the heart ? 
Long the watchers weep and wait, 
For that stone is very great. 
Faith and Hope, linked hand in hand, 
With 'heavenward eyes expectant stand, 
Meek and lonely as of yore 
The Maries, at the sepulchre. 
Hard and grim its brows are knit, 
All with grim, hard records writ. 
Who their dark import shall say ? 
Who shall roll the stone away ? — 

" Fasts and vigils give the art 
To read the language of the heart." — 

" Read me then, thou well-met seer, 
Somewhat of the records here, 
Showing thence, if thence thou may, 
Who shall roll the stone away." — 

" ' Here lies one, whose mighty yontJi 
Glowed with eloquence and truth' 
High on Zion's summit dim, 
Waves the palm that grew for him. 
A poisoned sheep at Zion's foot 
Sank he, at a laurel's root. 
Dead to glory, dead to shame, 
Laid him here the Lust of Fame. 
When their anthems shake the sphere, 
Seraphs stop in mid-career, 



9i 

On their humming harps, to hear ; — 
Vainly bends each earthward ear. 
Manhood's voice, with manly mind 
Pleading with, and for, mankind, 
Lifts no more its echoing tone. 
Hollow sounds the rumbling stone." — 

" Shall the silence last for aye ? 
Who shall roll the stone away ? " — 

" ' Moulders in this ray less cave 
The rightful master of a slave' 
Nature erst with liberal plan 
Moulded, cast, and stamped a man. 
Victim of a brother Cain, 
The noble creature here lies slain ; — 
Slain its nobler part doth lie, 
Sepulchred by Tyranny ; — 
Gloom surrounds it ; tenfold gloom 
Hides the world beyond the tomb ; 
Rage, and in its trail, Remorse 
Gnaw, — sharp-toothed worms, — its helpless corse. 
In its stead a thrall survives, — 
Wretched engine, plies, not lives ! 
So he still God's likeness wears, 
Heweth wood, and water bears, 
Wherefore rend yon stony slough ? 
Is it not for him enough ? 
Let his rightful master lie 
Sepulchred by Tyranny, 
And blindfold Virtue leagued with Sin, 



9 2 

Bid us help to hold him in ! 
Move his lips, but not to pray." — 

"Who shall roll the stone away ? " — 

" ' Here was laid this spirit dead 
By Despair, his lady wed! 
Foe thrice-sworn to care and strife, 
Through the summer of his life, 
Like a lightsome bird roved he 
From bank to bank and tree to tree, 
Nor timely learned to wing his flight 
Towards the eternal Life and Light. 
Ne'er his joys' flush haste could brook 
The hinderance of a filial look 
To the bending heaven above, 
In whose warm and fostering love 
His merry world was lapped and cherished ; 
Fell the leaves, and summer perished. 
Quaking sapling, shrub, and tree, 
In winter's thin white livery, 
Twinkled back the kindly light, 
Pointing to its birthplace bright. 
But his fixed and earthward eye 
Saw hope's blossoms fruitless die. 
While the ice-clad cypress well 
Of those buried hopes the knell 
Tolled, with cold and crystal clank, 
Stiffened, deaf, and blind he sank ; 
And a mound of sealing snows 
O'er his heavy tombstone rose. 
Sun thaws not these drifts so gray." — 



93 
" Who shall roll the stone away ? " — 

" ' Mammon reared this gilded stone 
O'er a ivcll-bcloved son' 
For him your bitterest tears be shed, 
The neighbour's soul, — the patriot's, — dead, 
Who once, without two mites to give, 
Would fast to bid the famished live, 
Or cloakless brave the winter's wrack, 
To thatch the aged beggar's back, 
And tear the bribing Dives' note, 
And throw unsoiled his honest vote ! 
He sees no more fair Freedom's pains, 
Languishing in golden chains. 
Where his buried soul doth sleep, 
Widows bowed and orphans weep. 
His widowed wife and orphaned seed, 
Dowered and portioned with need, 
Starve in more than outward dearth, — 
Starved their hearts and cold their hearth ; — 
And his boyhood's friend unheard 
Calls him from Want's dungeon barred." — 

" Who their anguish shall allay ? 
Who shall roll the stone away ? " — 

" ' This soul, ere youth had danced its round, 
Slumbered on the Enchanted Ground,' 
All unmindful of the cost, 
Till the light of life was lost. 
Lulled with song of groves and streams, 



94 

And sirens soft, to baleful dreams, 

It laughing Folly hither bore ; 

Habit straight made fast the door. 

Then it woke ! — it woke to see 

The blackness of its misery ! — 

Woke to grope the weirdly gloom 

Of a living-buried doom ! 

Tiptoe prim Morality, 

In white, large-bordered garments, by, 

When for ruth and aid it cried, 

Passed it on the other side. 

How it scours its evil lair, 

Frightened by the darkness there, — 

Knocks and shrieks, — poor soul ! — for day ! 

" Who shall roll the stone away ? " — 

"'Here'" — 

" Nay, peace ! Thy task give o'er ! 
Read, for I will hear, no more ! 
If it only serve to show 
These hidden things of shame and woe, 
Nor faintest thrill of hope to impart, 
Worse than vain thy boasted art ! 
Seest thou, 'mid these hideous glooms, 
No spirits rising from their tombs ? 
All too long the watchers wait. 
Still the stone is fixed as fate. 
Send, great God, Thy thunders down ! 
Naught below can rend this stone." — 



95 

u Over stone-bound sprites I grope, 
Oft as now, and find no hope ; 
And, dwelling 'mid these lonely glooms, 
Once I sat among the tombs 
From the pale first glow of day 
To its latest drowning ray, 
In vain ; but, when the midnight thickened, 
Mine inner ear the darkness quickened, 
Till, choking down my heart's loud beat, 
I heard the angels' stealthy feet ; 
(They love to do their good, I ween, 
As God doth His, and be not seen.) 
With joy suppressed, I heard them come 
Whispering downward from their home ; 
Then round me seemed the stones to roll 
From many a gasping, rising soul, 
And after, many a still, small voice 
To bid the enfranchised ones rejoice. 

" Thus by Night and Silence trained, 
My sharpened sense the skill hath gained 
To catch, — while through his sunshine bright 
Tramps shouting Noon, — their flutterings light;, 
And, through the statesman's protest, flung 
In the teeth of chartered Wrong, 
Through the sighs of charity, 
Through the preacher's homily, 
Through confession's faltering breath, 
Through the stifled moan of death, 
Or the solemn swell of prayer 
Stealing on the hallowed air, 



9 6 

Where some sweet and saintly tongue 
Pleadeth for the listening throng, — 
Thus I hear, from day to day, 
Angels roll the stones away." 



A VIGIL WITH ST. LOUIS. 

Xeipsc; fiev dyval, (ppyv 6'£X El f*iao/ia n. 

Euripides. 

O friend, thy brow is overcast ; but haply for thy 
grief, 

Though all untold, a means I hold to work a swift re- 
lief— 

A hallowed spell ; — no rites we need, that need to shun 
the light ; 

Thy taper trim ; for we must read some dark old words 
to-night. 

For I will — shall I ? — from their graves call up the 

holy dead, 
More potent than the living oft, such soul as thine to aid. 
From Fear and Woe, through fears and woes like ours, 

they won release, 
And, through our still - confronting foes, once fought 

their way to peace. 
'Twixt woe and weal, a balm to heal our every wound 

they found, — 
An outlet for each pool of strife that whirls us round 

and round. 
And if perhaps their childish time discerned not all 

aright,— 



97 

While Fancy her stained windows reared between them 

and the light, — 
That in these lighter latter days 'tis given to thee to 

know, 
Then seek the spirit they received, and bid the letter go. 



Thy heart unto its Lord unlock, and shut thy closet- 
door ; 

The holy water of thy tears drop on the quiet floor ; 

Unclasp the old brown tome. The walls no more are 
seen. The page 

I read ; and we are backward borne far in a by-gone age. 

The spell hath wrought. To take us in, a tower and 
bower advance, 

Where grows upon our steadfast gaze the royal saint of 
France. 

That bower full well a hermit's cell, — with hour-glass 

decked, and skull, — 
Might seem, — the hangings woven all of rocks and 

mosses full. 
The floor is thick with rushes strown ; some kneeling- 

place is there 
Worn, — as, when in the marsh they grew, by deer that 

made their lair, — 
Worn just beneath yon carven form that leans in pain 

and love, 
As if to bless, from its high place, and almost seems to 

move 
When round it, with the wind of night, the arras sways 

and swings, — 
The Viceroy's of the Universe, Son of the King of kings. 



9 8 

For Louis loves to leave his court and lay aside his 

crown, 
And, to a mightier Prince than he, to bow in homage down. 
In this great Presence, learns the king peace, ruth, and 

lowlihead ; 
Here learns the saint, the majesty no human power to 

dread. 

But now the king's mute voice, it rings, and through 
the shades doth call, 
'* Ho, Sire de Jonville, come to me, my doughty Sen- 
eschal ! " 

The rafters feel the tramp of steel ; and by the mon- 
arch stand 
Again the feet that by him stood erst in the Holy Land. 

" O Sire de Jonville," to his friend and servant, Louis 
saith, 

" Hold fast and firmly to the end the jewel of thy faith. 

Strong faith's the key of heaven ; and once an abbot 
taught to me, 

If will is good, though faith is weak, shall faith ac- 
cepted be. 

This tale he told : 

"A Master old, — Master of Sacred Lore,* — 
Of fame unsmirched, once came to him in straits and 

travail sore. 
' What wouldst thou, Master ? What's the grief that 

makes thee peak and pine ? — 

*See Note XI. 



99 

And comest thou to me ? My soul hath often leaned 
on thine.' 

" ' Let each co-pilgrim lean in turn on each,' in an- 
guish meek, 

With tongue that clave unto its roof, the Master then 
did speak ; 

But when the abbot led him in, and lent him pitying 
ears, 

Then tears came fast instead of words ; words could not 
come for tears. 

" ' O brother, weep no more, but speak ; and banish 

thy dismay. 
Of Man is guilt ; but grace is God's, that purgeth guilt 

away. 
If all our little being's bound were filled and stuffed 

with sin, 
'Twere nothing to the holiness, His mighty heart 

within ; 
And, in this wilderness of life, there's no such crooked 

road 
But from it may a path be found straight to the throne 

of God. 
The penitent, who mourns like thee, that path shall 

surely take ; 
What needeth but to own thy sin and straight thy sin 

forsake ? ' 

" ' Yet must I weep. Mine inward plight is one that 
stands alone ; 

LofC. 



100 

The outward ill, the tempted wight may do or leave 

undone ; 
But when I to the altar go to eat the sacred bread, 
And gaze upon the blood divine that for us all was 

shed, 
Still Satan stirreth up in me a heart of unbelief ! — 
This guilt must sure unmeasured be, save haply by this 

grief.' 

u The abbot's brows were sternly bent an instant on 

his guest ; 
' Dost thou — thou dost not, sure ! — invite this traitor 

to thy breast ? ' 

" The livelong day, though sore assailed, true watch 

and ward I keep, — 
Keep vigils long as flesh can bear, — but in my helpless 

sleep, — 
Thronged heaven, canst thou no angel spare to sit by 

me by night, 
And drive away the hell-sent dreams that drive me wild 

with fright ? — 
I seem to spurn with frantic hands, and spill, that 

piteous blood, — 
To trample on the blessed bread and spit upon the 

Rood ! ' 

" The abbot's cheer grew calm and clear ; ' Now, 

Master, tell me true : 
For aught that Satan proffers thee, such trespass would 

thou do ? ' 



101 

" ' From his poor thrall he taketh all, and offereth naught 

instead. 
The Father's grace, — the Son's kind face, — are all I 

crave/ he said. 

" ' For any threat of any fate, wouldst follow his com- 
mands ? ' 

" ' The fiery stake, I'd rather make my portion at his 
hands/ 

"The abbot's smile was bright the while as 'twere a 

saint's in bliss ; 
' O fiend, thou well mayst seek for hell so pure a gem 

as this ! 
O cunning foe, that round dost go, such heavenward 

birds to snare, 
When every brighter lure is vain, wouldst tempt them 

with despair ? — 
Bethink thee, Master : War doth rage 'twixt Britain's 

king, we know, 
And ours. Now tell me unto whom most thanks our 

liege shall owe, 
When war is o'er, — to him who, oft assailed, but never 

quelled, 
The castle of Rochelle upon the dangerous Marches 

held,— 
Whose battlements must bristle still with arblast, pike, 

and lance, — 
Or Monti' hery's, that nestles safe close to the heart of 

France ? ' * — 

* See Note XII. 



102 

" ' Unto the warden of Rochelle, — Thou'rt answered 
easily.' 

" ' That strong-hold is thy heart, but mine the keep of 

Montl'hery ; 
For he who giveth gifts to all, hath given me to believe 
So steadfastly that strife like thine, my wit can scarce 

conceive. 
From the Enemy, God keepeth me, — He knows my 

weaker strength, — 
But suffers thee assayed to be for higher meed at length. 
Then let us, at our different posts, His equal mercies 

own ; 
But they the sharpest thorns who bear, may wear the 

brightest crown.' 

" Beside his kneeling penitent the abbot bent the knee, 
Sped his own praise and prayers, to heaven, forth on an 

embassy, 
Then raised him up and saw that God had sent him 

answering grace, — 
The shadow of the Enemy had passed from heart and 

face. 
Calmly as warily he walked his fellow-men beside, 
Henceforth, — a good grave man. — 'Twas said, a happy 

man he died." 



103 

THREE SONNETS FOR LENT. 

I. The Father. 

"That it may please thee to raise up them that fall." 

The Book of Common Prayer. 

As the fond mother runneth from her home, 
Along the common ways, to find her child, — 
That ever and anon from her will roam, 
By folly, though it loves her well, beguiled, — 
Snatch eth it up and cries, " And did you fall 
And hurt yourself ? The robe I put on you 
At morn so fresh, is torn and sullied all ; 
But you shall have one whole and white and new " ; 
Oh, heavenly Father, in Thy pity, thus 
Seek Thou Thine offspring in their faults or crimes ! 
We from Thy feet have strayed, — the best of us, — 
And hurt ourselves not once, but many times. 
Lift Thou us up ; and clothe us in the dress, 
Glistering and white, of Jesu's holiness ! 

II. The Healer. 

"And he healed them that had need of healing." 

The Gospel of St. Ltike ix. u. 

Oh, happy sufferers, unto whom their pain, 
Though sorest pain, such meed of healing won ! 
Oh, heavenly Father, send to earth again, 
To those who languish still, Thy blessed Son ! 
Look on the wounds, Death's cruel hand doth leave 
In those he leaves behind, — on calm, brave eyes, 



104 

That shed no outward tears, of those who grieve 
O'er hurts unguessed until the victim dies, — 
Pangs of old friendship wronged, and true love spurned. — 
Thou seest in secret. See the springs of hope 
Into the dry mirage that mocks hope, turned. 
See Adam's scars, too apt afresh to ope. 
Thou, Who of yore for us wert sacrificed, 
We all have need of healing, O Lord Christ ! 

III. The Gardener. 

I dreamed a gardener, in a garden fair, 

Sought long of tree and vine and bush to bring 

A basketful of fruits all rich and rare, 

To offer it in triumph to his king. 

The show was brave ; but, when he touched and scanned, 

One, seeming sweet, was scarcely sound and firm ; 

One, glowing bright, was hard unto his hand ; 

This, soiled with earth ; that, eaten by the worm. 

Unripe or marred were all, where'er he came. 

He wrung his hands and wept and turned away 

And blamelessly, in men's eyes, bore the blame, 

And left his offering for another day. 

Oh God, my God, our King, and can it be ? — 
Is Christ the gardener ? — And the fruit are we ? 



io5 



YEARNINGS. 

Thou Who art great, look on our littleness, 
That strives so hard to rise, itself above, 
And wastes its weakness, breaks its brittleness, 
And flutters idly like a wounded dove, 
That looks unto the sky and fain would soar 
And struggling flaps its broken wing with pain, 
And only languishes and bleeds the more. 
Let us not look unto Thy heaven in vain, 
With baffled yearnings. As some kind leech will * 
Out of the dust some petty sufferer take, — 
Hurt bird or beast, — and spend on it his skill, 
And make it well for his own goodness' sake, 
Though it can give him neither fame nor fee, 
So let Thy mercy work for us with Thee. 



LEAD AND GOLD. 

" Petty and paltry, baffled, beggared all, 
My life is sunk in nothingness," I said ; 
" From day to day, a grovelling, earth-bound thrall, 
My gold forsook, I delve for others' lead. 
And glitter still the rifts of Helicon ! 
The diver yet grows rich in Hippocrene, 
Whence I, too, brought some ingots once that shone,- 

*See Note XIII. 



io6 

Now dimmed with years and tarnished of their sheen ! " 
Answered my King, " Thy fellow-subjects' lot, 
Scorn' st thou to share ? Love is the mystic stone 
That changeth lead to gold. And why should not 
As well by thee as by another one 

Mirk mines be wrought ? Dost thou grudge time 
to Me ? — 

To Me, who give eternity to thee ! " 



PEACE; BE STILL. 

" In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." 

Isaiah xxx. 15. 

I toiled ; my tools were taken from my hand. 
I sought for more, and straightway was laid down. 
" What shall I do ? " I sobbed. Then saw I stand 
O'er me my Master ; and without a frown, 
Thus did He, pitying, answer me : "Be still. 
This is thy time to bear, and Mine to do, 
To thee and in thee, all My holy will. 
And what I do, to-day thou canst not know ; 
But thou shalt know hereafter," said my Lord ; 
" On thee, not by thee, must My work be wrought." 
And thereupon some echoes of the Word, 
That with a keenly hearkening ear I caught, 

After hard struggles brought me peace at length 
" In quietness and trust shall be thy strength." 



io; 



THE SHADOW. 

" For . . . our days on the earth are, {i.e., our life on the earth is,] as a shadow." 

i Chronicles xxix. 15. 

The traveller, walking early from the east, 
Sees his long shadow stretching out before ; 
But, while his eyes on varied prospects feast, 
He marks not how it shortens more and more ; 
Nor, pushing onward, doth he think or know, 
While mid-day burns, how stealthy, mute, and fleet, 
Behind him toward his starting-point to grow, 
It, dwindled, slides beneath his hastening feet. 
Well spake the Shepherd-king : Thus, in our dawn, 
And in the glare and hurry of our noon, 
And when our lagging day is almost gone, 
Our life is as a shadow. Lo, how soon 

The long to-morrow, that before us lay, 
Behind us runs, a dim, long yesterday ! 



THE GAME OF DEATH AND LIFE. 

Death played with Life ; and Life was on my side. 
Death took a pawn, — or two. — 'Twas scarcely missed ; 
And I looked idly on, in careless pride ; 
For what his play might mean, I little wist ; 
And still Life's table cheery looked, and full 
As ever with its many ruddy men ; 
And happy inexperience made me dull 



io8 

Before Death's sharpness. — Still some moves, and then 
He castled, took both knights, and next my queen, 
Cried, " Check, — the game is mine ! " and swept the 

board, 
Ere I could read his drift, and cry between, 
" Foul play ! " But know thou this, o'er-reaching lord, 
Another Life shall next my champion be, 
And win back all I lost, — win more, — of thee ! 



HERMAN'S VIGILS. 

A SONG IN THE NIGHT. 

"Yet the Lord will command His loving-kindness in the day-time; and in the 
night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life." 

Psalm xlii. 8. 

" L'on y apprend qu'une affliction bien enduree est un tr^sor pour l'dternite, et que 
souffrir avec Jesus Christ doit etre l'ambition d'une ame qui veut s'approcher de sa 
glorieuse conformity." 

" Beati qui lugent." 

Thou Who didst cheer with melodies of heaven 
Israel's crowned shepherd in his vigils long, 
To the long midnight of my woe hast given, 
At last, a faint, low song. 

While Rest and Childhood press their quiet pillows, 
By Thy dear presence' pitying pleadings won 
From hoarse-grown Silence,* I from wind-swung willows 
Mine unstrung harp take down. 

Too faint to climb, no more with burning hands 
I strain for gadding bays its frame to deck ; 

*See Note XIV. 



109 

But kneeling where the Cross forsaken stands, 
The ensanguined flowers I seek, — 

Sad passion-flowers, pansies dark and sweet, 

And love-lies-bleeding drowned in heaven-wept dew, 
And herb-of -grace, for broken spirits meet, 
The Serpent-baffling rue. 

As the pleased mother marks, an unmarked warden, 
Her children's pastimes from her window high, 
But, if or fright or pain invade her garden, 
Doth breathless to them fly, 

Clasps them with kisses in her felt embraces, 
Them with her unexpected voice doth cheer, 
And looks into their upturned, crying faces, 
That straight begin to clear, 

So Thou, — Who, o'er our mazy life presiding, 
An ever-tender, mindful watch dost keep 
O'er all our joys, those thoughtless joys providing, — 
Art nearest when we weep. 

Oh, that to all this world of grieving mortals 
I could one tithe, but, of the balm impart, 
With which Thou knockest at the unlatched portals 
Of my void, desolate heart ! 

With tears Thou deign'st to purge my dust -dimmed 
vision, 
So of the ends of fleeting earthly woe, — 
In the high councils of Thy state Elysian, — 
Somewhat to me to show : 



no 

Much, much Thy mercy takes, that Thou mayst give 
Gifts which Thy wisdom sees worth all besides. 
Our life decays to teach our souls to live 
Where deathless life abides. 

Thou, for our heavenly, thwart' st our earthly ends, 
For riches true, dost change our drossy pelf, 
And callest up to Thee our human friends, 
To substitute Thyself. 

Thou, firm yet kindly Nurse, dost put away 
The fading, poisonous laurels, — then, to calm 
Our idle rage, our blessed loss wouldst pay 
With fair immortal palm. 

Art's brightest pages into blackness turn 
In the grim noontide of our darkened eyes, 
But that from Thine own lessons we may learn 
The lore that angels prize. 

E'en though Thou suffered those to smite us sore, 
Whom erst Thou didst ordain to soothe and bless, 
'Twere through their wounds, the oil and wine to pour 
Of mightier Tenderness. 

Borne on a bed of soft, inglorious roses, 

Thou wouldst not, Father, that Thy child should be, 
To those calm halls where, lapped in peace, reposes 
Christ's host from victory. 



From heaven's steep ramparts, when some watchman 
bright 
Shows the dim sunken point that gave him birth, — 



Ill 

Through deeps of surging suns and tossing light, — 
The recollected earth, 

Looks through the woes did cloud its petty ball, 
And smiles at phantasms that befooled his ken, 
Straining a spirit's memory to recall 
How once he walked with men, 

And modest of the mighty wars will tell, — 
In its clay cradle's infancy and age, 
Strangling the writhing snaky brood of hell, — 
His infant soul did wage, 

And boasts, with grateful pride, Thine arm that gave 
Its aid in every peril that befell, 
Thou wouldst not that one craven child should have 
No answering tale to tell. 

For crowns of thorns, that gall Thy saints below, 
Are crowns of glory worn, by saints above ; 
The Hand that weaves one for my shrinking brow 
Is weaving it in love. 

For the last time, perchance 'tis proffered ; 
Oh, bear with me, and I will now endure, 
Lest 'mid Thy shining ones I hang my head 
Undiademed, obscure ! 

Thou bidst me to the table where, on waters 
Of bitterness and sorrow's hardest bread, 
Earth's noblest sons and purest, holiest daughters 
Their growing souls have fed. 



112 

In the heart's upper, large, hushed chamber sitting, 
Their working brows by angels' pinions fanned, 
By high Thoughts waited on with service fitting, 
I see the awful band. 

The blood-like beads of sweat big on His forehead, 
Lo, at their head, most sad, most blest, sits He 
Who knelt, upon the night of nights most horrid, 
In dank Gethsemane ! 

To share the Passover of agony, 

As lay of yore the loved Apostle John, 
On His own heaving bosom bids me lie 
My Saviour and Thy Son. 

And, " If Thou mayst not pass from me this cup," — 
So round the board the half-choked pledge doth 
run, — 
O Father, to its dregs I drink it up ; 
Thy will, not mine, be done ! " 

It is enough ! With Thee and them in union, 
Though all my days be spent in travail sore, 
Make me but worthy of this dread communion, 
And I will ask no more. 

Make me but worthy, Lord, lest I, as they 
Who in despair and wrath their spirits sink, 
Taking this cup and bread unworthily, 
Damnation eat and drink. 

Drawn nearer Thee, not chased, in each affliction, 
Oh, let me own, with faith that cannot rove, 



H3 

A Father's earnest hand in benediction, 
Heavy with weight of love ! 

No more I yield to doubtings or dejections, 
But meekly offer up to God and Man 
A pierced heart's blood and crucified affections, 
The little all I can ; 

And when — as sudden glooms and darkness dun 
Sweep from my life's short road the flying light,- 
Spreads her grim veil to shroud me from the sun, 
The frowning, awful Night, 

I will not shudder at its black expansion, 
But, darkling led by Thee, will trusting say, 
" Some rising turret of my heavenly mansion 
Doth shadow o'er my way." 

My soul is strengthened. He that ever liveth 
To those who at His midnight footstool weep, 
Shall give unto me, even as He giveth 
To His beloved, sleep ; 

And, as the priceless boon in peace I take, 

Beneath Thy brooding wings my bed shall be ; 
And I will lay me down, sure, when I wake, 
Of being still with Thee. 



114 



THE CHILD'S PLEA. 

Because I wear the swaddling-bands of Time, 

Still mark and watch me, 
Eternal Father on Thy throne sublime, 

Lest Satan snatch me. 

Because to seek Thee I have yet to learn, 

Come down and lead me. 
Because I am too weak my bread to earn, 

My Father, feed me. 

Because I grasp at things that are not mine 

And might undo me, 
Give from Thy treasure-house of goods divine 

Good gifts unto me. 

Because too near the pit I creeping go, 

Do not forsake me. 
To climb into Thine arms I am too low, — 

O Father, take me ! 



H5 



QUARE TRISTIS? 

Why shun, my soul, with downcast, cowed behaviour, 
The strife that lowers ? 
Man's lot is pain. Shall Satan or the Saviour 
Attend on ours ? 

Still in the van is found thy conquering Warden ; 
And flight is loss. 
The soothing angels of the grievous garden 
Still haunt the Cross. 

And if, accomplished all thy craven fears, 
That Cross be mine, 
On high the martyrs sing, Faith grows in tears 
As pearls in brine.* 

If 'twere not for the world, that comes between 
With cares unmeet, 
O child of God, by thee the stars were seen 
Beneath thy feet ! 

Thou, Father, fallest into no mistake ; 
We judge amiss, 
And often choose the sordid things that make 
Ignoble bliss. 

Then bless us, — but for this, with bended knee, 
On Thee I call, — 
As we should pray that Thou shouldst bless, if we, 
Like Thee, knew all ! 

* See Note XV. 



u6 



THE ROCK. 

" From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when my heart is overwhelmed : 
lead me to the rock that is higher than I." 

Psalm lxi. 2. 

"And a man shall be as an hiding-place; ... as rivers of water in a dry place, as 
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 

Isaiah xxxii. 2. 

Oh Father, 'mid the quicksands of life I go astray ! 
The rising billows chase me, — I cannot find my way ! 
I stumble, — I am sinking ! All-Holiness, give heed 
Unto my baffled frailty ; come down unto my need ; 
And give my babbling dumbness in time a voice to cry, 
Oh, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I ! 

Oh Rock of vine and olive, whose palmy shade 

abounds 
For my hungry heart with honey, — with oil to heal her 

wounds ! 
In a weary land a shadow, when fierce the sunbeams 

beat! 
Place from the Foe to hide me ! Sure stay for slippery 

feet ! 
Full source of living waters, when earthly founts run 

dry! — 
Oh, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I ! 

Thereon my house be founded, that when all round 
me blow 
The winds of wild false doctrine, and near and nearer 
flow, 



ii7 

With cramp-struck swimmers laden, cold floods of 

unbelief, 
And comes and beats upon me, the drowning rain of 

grief, 
My strong-hold may unshaken stand 'mid the ruins nigh. 
Oh, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I ! 

When Pleasure would bewitch me, and casteth from 

her hand 
Spells to make her barren lowlands fair and false as 

fairy-land, 
Say, " Come up higher," Father, that I may see and 

know 
This world's bright passing glories, and how to let them 

By Him who viewed undazzled, and bade the Tempter 

fly. 
Oh, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I ! 

When men wish me happy new years, but, as every 

old year ends, 
The new mile-stones on my journey are the grave-stones 

of old friends, 
From the Shadow's awful Valley to the Rock that riseth 

o'er, 
To show me the sweet souls that have but gone on 

before, 
Where mists of death no longer can blind my weeping 

eye, 
Oh, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I ! 



n8 

When dearest homes are emptied and nearest hearth- 
stones cold, 
Lead up my homesick footsteps, and bid mine eyes 

behold 
The mansion making ready, that lights its lamps for 

me, — 
With household names resounding, — with old, familiar 

glee- 
Till dwindle into moments the years between that lie. 
Oh, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I ! 

When nigh unto the socket my candle burns away, 
In the living Rock's safe keeping my mortal down to 

lay- 
As in the tomb of Joseph, where angels all the night 
At head and foot sat watching, and made the darkness 

light- 
Obedient and unshrinking to bid this life good-bye, 
Oh, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I ! 

And that, when the trumpet soundeth that calls the 

dead to rise, — 
As an eagle on her eyry uplifted to the skies, 
In the cleft of a mighty mountain, — when, caught up in 

the air, 
The ransomed meet their Saviour, — I may betimes be 

there, — 
Not wait the dreadful gleaning, the second death to 

die, — 
Oh, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I ! 



ii9 



ANNA THE PROPHETESS. 

"And there was one Anna, a prophetess ; . . . and she was a widow of about four- 
score and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings 
and prayers night and day." 

St. Luke ii. 36, 37. 

" Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? . . . Therefore 
glorify God in your body." 

1 Corinthians vi. 19, 20. 

St. Luke the evangelist left in his history, 

To us, a legend most soothing and calm ; 
Far off and dim, in its distance and mystery, 

Down the long ages it sounds like a psalm. 
Homilies oft have less weight with more heaviness ; 

Much in few words to our spirits doth say, 
The old Scripture that tells us how Anna the prophetess 

Served in the temple by night and by day. 

Through wedded bliss, from her innocent maidenhood 

Softly led on toward a saintly old age, 
Then, through the shock and the anguish of widowhood, 

To the one shrine that her woe could assuage, — 
First through the myrtles, and then through the cypresses, 

Up to the mountain where palms have their sway, — 
Hallowed and comforted, Anna the prophetess 

Served in the temple by night and by day. 

Veiled far within were the Ark and gold Cherubim. 
Veiled in the Court of the Women was she, 
Seeing in visions heaven oped, with its Seraphim, — 
Seeing by faith what her eye could not see ; — 



120 

Trusting, and teased by no vain, prying restlessness, — 
Firm, with a foot that went never astray 

After forbidden ground, — Anna the prophetess 
Served in the temple by night and by day. 

Many a daughter of Zion, in bravery 

Mincing abroad, perfumed, jewelled, and curled, 
Proudly the livery wore of her slavery 

Unto the prince of this perishing world, — 
Sought his delights with a greediness measureless. 

Seeking her God, — ever eager to pray, — 
In her dark weeds, awful Anna the prophetess 

Served in the temple by night and by day. 

Sneered cynic Sadducee. Broad in phylactery, 

To the street starers rehearsing his part, 
Flaunted the Pharisee, Moses' charactery 

Writ on his raiment and not on his heart, — 
Whitening the tomb of his inward unrighteousness, — 

Thee, Lamb of God, making ready to slay ; 
While, in her lowliness, Anna the prophetess 

Served in the temple by night and by day. 

Till when, in swaddling-bands fashioned by mortal 
hands, 
Laying the glories aside of His home, — 
Leaving His Sire, — to survey our low tare-sown lands, 

The Prince of the universe bowed Him to come, 
He in His infant grace, to the meek votaress 
Came in His mother's soft arms as He lay, 



121 

Where, at her post suitress, Anna the prophetess 
Served in the temple by night and by day. 

Low lies the temple that towered o'er Jerusalem ; 
But in another, not built by men's hands, 
Where hallelujahs succeed to the requiem, 
Anna the prophetess jubilant stands. 
Still at our work, Father, us with this blessing bless : 

So to serve Thee, in these temples of clay, 
That we, when they fall, may, with Anna the prophetess, 
Serve in Thy temple of ne'er-nighted day. 



THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 

O'er waves that murmur ever nigh 
My window opening toward the deep, 
The light-house with its wakeful eye 

Looks into mine, that shuts to sleep. 

I lose myself in idle dreams, 

And wake in smiles or sighs or fright, 
According to my visions' themes, 

And see it shining in the night, 

Forever there and still the same ; 

While many more besides me mark, — 
On various course, with various aim, — 
That light which shineth in the dark. 



122 

It draws my heart toward those who roam 
Unknown, nor to be known, by me ; 
I see it and am glad, at home, 

They see it and are safe at sea. 

On slumberous, thus, or watching eyes, 
It shines through all the dangerous night ; 
Until at length the day doth rise, 

And light is swallowed up of light. 



Light of the world, incarnate Word, 

So shin'st Thou through our night of time, 
Whom freemen love to call their Lord, — 
O beacon steadfast and sublime ! 

In temporal things, — grief, joy, or care, — 
Enrapt, we dream, but turn to Thee, 
And straightway where and what we are 
By Thine unfailing radiance see. 

Some see Thee from life's sheltered shore ; 
Some watch Thee, doomed to sail life's deep, 
Whose cruel waters rage and roar, 

Or o'er sharp reefs in ambush creep j 

But while to them Thou show'st the way, 
Their anxious way is safe and blest ; 
Their brave, long toil, may wealth repay 

Scarce won by those at ease who rest ; 



123 

And men of every land and speech, 
If but they have Thee in their sight, 
Are bound to Thee, and each to each 

Through Thee, by threads of love and light. 

So be it till the end shall be, 

When Death beneath Thy feet shall fall 
And, unto us as unto Thee, 

Thy God and ours be all in all.* 



THE SOUL AND THE WORD. 

" He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble." 

Psalm xci. 15. 

Once, when the happy birds and flowers were lulled 

in slumbers deep, 
But Woe had laid her hands on me and borne me far 

from Sleep, 
Beneath the pall that canopied the night, I voices heard. 
I listened ; and the Soul of Man was talking with the 

Word: 

The Soul. 

" My poverty ! The paltry goods I gain, I cannot 
hold. 
Rust eats my iron, — moth, my web ; the thief doth paw 
my gold ! " 

*See Note XVI. 



124 
The Word. 

"Though even here I offer thee the riches of God's 
grace, 

This world is but thy wayside inn, and not thy dwelling- 
place. 

Thy Sire to thee the kingdom wills ; look up, and there 
behold 

A treasure-house thieves come not nigh, and bags that 
wax not old." 

The Soul. 

" A hundred hungry Longings prey in turn upon my 

peace. 
If fed, they but the stronger grow, — they gnaw and 

never cease ; 
But of all raging, ravening things that howl with every 

breath, 
There's nothing that dies half so hard as Hopes, when 

starved to death." 

The Word. 

"Then set them upon righteousness, — their famine 
shall be filled ; 

With living waters shall their thirst forevermore be 
stilled." 

The Soul. 

" In weakness and in nakedness, I war with countless 
foes; 
I wrestle, watch, and weep in vain ; they leave me no 
repose." 



125 
The Word. 

" Put on what I hold out to thee, — the armour of the 
Lord ; 
Some mightier far than thou shall keep around it watch 
and ward." 

The Soul. 

" My guilt doth stare me in the face ; I quake with 
nameless dread ; 
My sins in number more abound, than hairs upon my 
head ! " 

The Word. 

" Poor soul, to cleanse thy stains away, — more open- 
handed far, 

Than earthly parents, with their gifts unto their chil- 
dren, are, — 

Thy heavenly Father waits to give to thee His Holy 
Ghost ; 

His first-born Son, He sent from Him to seek and save 
the lost." 

The Soul. 

" I shudder at the solitude that girdles me around ; 
I speak or shriek, — no answering voice to echo mine is 

found. 
Too sadly, if 'twere run alone, the noblest race were 

run ; 
And human love is hard to win, and mortal when 'tis 

won." 



126 

The Word. 

" In memory of such loneliness, the Son gave unto 

me 
This message for thee, — see that thou but take it home 

to thee : — 
' Who loves Me, he will keep My words ; then let him 

know full well, 
My Sire and I will come to him in love, and with him 

dwell.' " 

The Soul. 

" My brethren ne'er will point and stare at glory that 

is mine. 
In vain I trim my lamp of life ; I cannot make it shine. 
And more and more, as wane the hours, I see that 'tis 

its lot 
To smoke unnoted and scarce known, — go out and be 

forgot." 

The Word. 

"'Tis granted thee thy Saviour's cross to bear behind 
Him here, — 
When He appeareth, then with Him in glory to ap- 
pear." 

Then cried the self-convicted Soul, " Oh vain, — Oh 

puerile pride ! 
What matter if the monument be on the hither side, — 
Or further, — of the sepulchre ? So I remembered be 
In heaven, there shall I earth forget, while earth for- 

getteth me. 



127 

But grim the King of Terrors stands, my home and me 

between ; 
Its brightness still with jealous hands, he from my eyes 

doth screen. 
Upon me sentence was pronounced or ever I was born ; 
And in the shadow of the tomb I, all my days forlorn, 
Sit like the criminal condemned, who knows within his 

cell, 
His death-warrant is on its way, — how near he cannot 

tell." 

The Word. 

" Before He wakened Lazarus, Death's mighty Master 

said, 
' The man who doth in Me believe shall live though he 

were dead. 
The resurrection and the life,' — thus saith the Christ, 

— 'am I ; 
And all that live, and do believe in Me, shall never 

die ' ! " 

No more I listened, — heard no more, — beneath the 
stillness deep ; 
For Woe had loosed her hold on me, and yielded me to 
Sleep. 



128 



VESPERS. 

" The sun now stoops, and hastes his beams to hide 
Under the dark and melancholy earth. 
All but preludes thy end." 

Henry Vaughan. 

" Parahts et Fidelis." 

Motto of the Gorhams. 

The creeping shadows deeper grow. 
The bird flits near her nest. 
The village rests. The generous sun, 
Fast sinking in the west, 

Flings blithely back his lavish gold 
To gild the brassy vanes, 
And lighteth festal lamps that burn 
In all the window-panes, 

To welcome his successor in, 
The tearful black-stoled Night, 
And o'er the Earth's huge shoulder smiles, 
That bears him out of sight. 

The tender Twilight, sent from God, 
With soft and sighing breath 
Its punctual message duly says, — 
" Prepare for peaceful death." 



O Thou, That mad'st my flesh of dust, 
My spirit out of Thine, 



129 

Unto Thine every summons must 
My ready ear incline. 

Thou know' st if far, or just at hand, 
Is even now the day 
That goeth forth, at Thy command, 
To bear my soul away. 

Thou seest through mists of years, that strain 
And balk my human eye, 
Where, — when, — this restless heart and brain 
Two quiet clods shall lie. 

The bed-time doth the father choose 
That for the child is best. 
Let but my work be done before ; 
And let my sleep be rest, 

My wedding-garment whole and clean, 
My fellow-servants fed, 
My fruit an hundred-fold, and ten 
My traded talents made, 

And let me with my oil's full cruse, 
And well-trimmed lamp alight, 
Whene'er I hear the Bridegroom's voice, 
Dart forth into the night, 

As children to their couches spring 
To sleep the dark away, 
And see the dawn that comes to bring 
The gifts of Christmas Day. 



130 



THE CROSS. 

"In hoc signo vinces." 

The Vision of Constantine. 

Holy Father, Thou this day 
Dost a Cross upon me lay. 
If I tremble as I lift, 
First, and feel Thine awful gift, 
Let me tremble not for pain, 
But, lest I may lose the gain, 
Which thereby my soul should bless, 
Through mine own unworthiness. 

Let me, drawing deeper breath, 
Stand more firmly, lest beneath 
My load I sink, and heavily 
In the dust it crusheth me. 
Bearing this, so may I strength 
Gather to receive at length, 
In turn, eternal glory's great 
And far more exceeding weight. — 

No, I am not crushed ; I stand ; 
But again Thy helping hand 
Reach to me, my pitying Sire ; 
I would bear my burden higher, — 
Bear it up so near to Thee 
That Thou shouldst bear it still with me. 

He, upon whose careless head 
Never any load is laid, 



i3i 

With an earthward eye doth oft 
Stoop and lounge too slothfully. 
Burdened heads are borne aloft 
With a sturdier dignity. 

By Thine own strong arm still led, 
Let me never backward tread, 
In a coward's base retreat, 
The path the Saviour's onward feet, 
Unswervingly if bleeding, trod 
Unto victory and God. 

Doth the banner-bearer wince, 
Who bears the standard of his prince 
To conquest in his galled palm, 
Or turn aside to seek for balm ? 
Nay, for the glory thrice outweighs 
The petty price of pain he pays. 

Till the appointed time is past, 
Let me hold Thy token fast. 
Ere I lay it down to rest, 
Late or early, be impressed 
So its stamp upon my soul 
That, while all the ages roll, 
Endlessly it may be shown 
The Shepherd marked me for His own ; 
Because I bear the crimson brand 
Of all the sheep washed by His hand, 
For my passing pain or loss, 
Signed with the eternal Cross. 



132 



DREAMING AND WAKING. 

Or in the body or without, — 

But which, I did not think or know, — 
My soul towards eve, in dread and doubt, 
Toiled in an Alpine waste of snow. 

A throne whereon sat nodding Death, 
The avalanche o'erhung the pass ; 
And oft athwart it yawned beneath 

The blue-lipped, hungry, sly crevasse. 

Where led that pass, I could not see, 
But saw no other, far or near ; 
Nor gaped its rifts alone for me, — 

For fellow-travellers far more dear ! — 

Then leaped the ready ruin down ! 
It leapt upon them ! One by one 
Each lurking pitfall claimed its own, — 
Each voice gave out its dying moan ! 

All help was vain, where help was nigh. 
They vanished out of human sight. 
In vain, to grope, — in vain, to cry ! — 

Alone I walked to meet the Night, — 

Alone with but the stillness bleak, 
The over-hanging precipice, 



133 

And snows that 'neath my feet did creak, 
Along the ice-edged, close abyss. 

Anon upon me, swift and sure, 

The mass of frozen darkness rushed 
With weight no mortal could endure, — 

Endure and breathe ; — and I was crushed, 

But was not stunned. The shock struck out 
My spark of life more quick and keen. 
My eyes, — I knew not they were shut, — 
Unclosed upon another scene. 

Beside my safe and pillowed head, 
'Mid myrtles, roses stood in bloom ; 
A hearth-stone's embers glimmered red 
Before me in a cosy room ; 

A bright white hand caressing strayed 
An organ's answering keys along, 
Light as the sun on Memnon played ; 
A sweet voice sang a holy song. 

No more to weep, no more to roam, 
I rose to move with fearless tread, 
In light and warmth and peace and home. 
The waiting evening meal was spread ; 

Above, a household lamp was lit, 

That long my evening star had been ; * 

*See Note XVII. 



134 

And those for whom my lids were wet, 
By different doors came cheerly in. 

Among them seated at the board, 

I told my dream to make them smile, 
Without a single solemn word ; 

But of myself I asked mean-while : 

" That certain stroke which all men dread, — 
Does it destruction, thus, but seem ? 
There is a ' waking ' from the dead ; 

Hath not our life been called ' a Dream ' ? " 



TIME IN THE WAY. 

Wounded she lay, before her alway 

Time crowned with willow, with willow ! 
"Time, canst not heal? Oh, stanch my heart's 

blood ! " 
Like a grim ghost, ever haunting, he stood 
Still, with clinched hands, o'er her pillow. 
He stared in her face, 
And stirred not a pace. 

Holding his breath, behind Time, was Death 
Waiting with arms full of poppy, 
Sprinkled with Lethe, and amaranth and balm ; 
Beyond him, Eternity bearing a palm. 



i"35 

" Hither, O Death, — make me happy ! " 
" When the field is my own ; 
First Time must be gone." 

" Drive him away, O Toil, — prithee, slay ! — 
Lend me thy wheel ever busy ; 
Lend me thy distaff and shuttle and loom ; 
Soon will I weave him a shroud for his tomb," 
Cried she, and wrought herself dizzy. 
Now Time turned to go ; 
But, oh, he was slow ! 

" Angel of Prayer, fly through this low air; 
Bring me some aid from God's city." 
Upward Prayer flew ; through the streets of pure gold, 
Weeping and sobbing, her story he told. 

Straightway flew back with him Pity. 
" Work for others' reliefs, — 
Not for thine own grief's," 

Pity said ; " Rise." Her tear-blinded eyes, 
Wiped he, in Misery's dominion, 
Showed her her brethren, and gave her to feed 
Their bodies and souls. When Time put forth his 
speed, 
Held she his fast-fluttering pinion : 
" Time, be not too fleet, — 
This way is so sweet ! " 



136 



LAZARUS' WIFE AT THE GATE. 

Lazarus' wife at your gate 

Lies, O proud and prosperous city ! 
Long will you leave her to wait ? 

Listen and look and have pity. 

Dives, oh, cannot you hear, 

For the music and dance of your nigh land, 
The moaning of misery drear 

That comes from yon desolate island ? 

Finest of linen you wear ; 

Comrades in luxury you cherish ; 
Sumptuously daily you fare. 

What of your neighbours who perish ? 

When you would heighten your cheer 
By a contrast that's very dramatic, 

Fancy what scenes may appear 
In a certain dim hospital attic, 

Swarming and sweltering and scant 
Of air, — foul to soul as to senses, — 

Where she that is guilty of want 

Meets a doom fit for graver offences. 



137 

Worn-out, the pauper nurse sleeps ; 

The sufferer, forsaken, is crying, 
With no one to moisten her lips, — 

And no one to mark that she's dying ! 



Or picture the scenes, to come 

Perhaps, of another sorrow, — 
Nearer your stately home, — 

That you will not have to borrow ; 

When hushed is all merry din, 

And your smiling guests have vanished ; 
When your flowers come blooming in, 

To be glanced at, once, and banished ; 

When vain are all the crafts 

That Mammon serve, and never 
Your costliest, coolest draughts 

Can slake the fire of your fever ; 

When the street is red with tan, 

And the oft-pulled door-bell muffled, 

That the peace of a dying man 
By no faintest sound be ruffled ; 

But you can't shut out your dread 
Heart-beats, that make you shiver ; 

For they plash like the Pale Horse' tread 

Bound for you, through the deep black river ; 



138 

When love, to give you rest, 

Doth toil with soothings fruitless ; 

And skill has done its best, 

And the land's best skill is bootless ; 

When the chaises leave the place, 
And the helpless, pale patrician 

Lies looking up in the face 
Of only the Great Physician, 

God grant it with joy may be 

That you hear, " What you did to others, 
Ye have done it unto Me, 

Through my sisters or my brothers ! " 



Lazarus' wife at your gate 

Lies, our generous, beloved old city ; 
Bid her no longer to wait ; * 

Open the doors of your pity ! 

* See Note XVII I. 



139 



GOLD. 

"What we spent, we had ; what we kept, we lost ; 

What we gave, we had." 

Old Epitaph. 

Fleet and slippery gold, 
Running through my hold, — 
Gold, that I am ever losing 
On things that perish in the using ; 
Gold, to me that art but lent ; 
Gold that, if thou be not spent, 
Surely I no more can keep 
When Death lays me down to sleep ! 

Fickle, Protean gold, 
Boon or bane untold ! 
Thou mak'st them rich that use thee,- 
Them poor that do abuse thee. 
Let me teach thee, while I can, 
To serve my God and fellow-man, 
That when my Master calls on me 
He have thee back with usury. 
In the bank above the skies, 
I shall find thee when I rise. 



140 



A MODERN BRIAREUS. 

" What ! More to do ? " growls Neighbour Sands ; 
" I wish I had two pair of hands." 

" Good neighbour, no more members crave, 
But duly use what hands you have ; 
Two hands your honest bread to earn ; 
Two hands dishonest gains to spurn ; 
Two hands to part a senseless brawl, 
Or save a weakling from a fall ; 
Two hands to slip a stealthy alms 
Between a widow's work-worn palms ; 
Two hands to clear your wheat from tares ; 
Two hands to lift in holy prayers ; 
Two hands to lay, 'mid pain or loss, 
In faith, upon a Saviour's cross ; 
Two hands to knock, when toil is past, 
At heaven's high gate, nor find it fast." 



I4i 



A DARK SAYING. 

God looked on me and smiling said, "Forgive thine 

enemy " ; 
And I shuddering answered, " This command, oh, be it 

far from Thee ! 
I am Thy servant, whom he spurns ; and how could it 

be meet 
That I should make me as a stone in the pavement for 

his feet ? " 

" In humbling thee, if thou obey, thou shalt exalted be." 
" Now ope to me this saying, Lord ; for 'tis too dark 

for me." 
" If thou didst hate, and wreak revenge upon thine 

enemy, 
Thou wert a tool of Lucifer ; and there's naught so low 

as he. 

" But when My love shall through thee shine on the evil 

and the good, 
The just and unjust, for His sake who died upon the 

Rood, 
'Twill glorify and hallow thee, and draw thee up to be, 
Raised high o'er poor humanity, a part of heaven 

with Me." 



142 



THE MAN WITH A GRUDGE. 

There once was a Man who bore a Grudge. 
Stoutly he bore it many a year. 
" Beware ! " said the parson. He answered, " Fudge ! 
Well it becomes me ; never fear. 

" Men for this world, and saints for heaven ; 
Too much of meekness shows a fool ; 
My loaf shall rise with a livelier leaven ; 
1 Give as you get ' is a good old rule." 

The longer he bore it, the more it grew, 
Grew his grudge, as he trudged along ; 

Till in sight of a pearly gate he drew, 
And he heard within it a wondrous song. 

The shining porter said, " Walk in." 

He sought to do so ; the gate was strait. 

Hard he struggled his way to win. 

The way was narrow ; the grudge was great. 

He turned in haste then to lay it down ; 

He strove to tear it away — to cut, — 
But it had fast to his heart-strings grown. 

" Oh, wait ! " he cried ; but the door was shut. 



143 

Through windows bright and clear, he saw 
The blessed going with their Lord to sup. 

But Satan clapped on his grudge a claw ; 

Hell opened her mouth and swallowed him up. 



AD ASTRA PER ASPERA. 

" Then in Life's Goblet freely press 
The leaves that give it bitterness." 

Longfellow. 

Within this world, where Woe doth weep in ceaseless 
lamentation, 

How lies beneath the surface deep a world of compen- 
sation ! 

In truest scales Man's more or less of bliss metes out 
Man's Sire, 

While in drop weights of heaviness to lift his joys the 
higher. 

Home's fireside warms those hearts the best, that have 

been far and dreary. 
He scarce can taste the sweets of rest, who ne'er was 

worn and weary ; 
And he who never felt the steel, nor heard the volleys 

rattle, 
How shall he guess the joy they feel who win the 

bloody battle ? 

The shady oasis none sees, who treads no desert sunny. 
The hive that swarms with stingless bees, it holdeth lit- 
tle honey ; 



144 

And none, save one whose joys are spilled by others' 

hap or malice, 
With the sweet wine of pardon filled can have his spirit's 

chalice. 

Dark angels, through our blackest night our fearful souls 

oppressing, 
If wrestled down with steadfast might, still leave us with 

a blessing. 
Storms beat and lash and cry aloud ; then Noah's flower 

of wonder, 
The rainbow, blossoms from the cloud ploughed by the 

bellowing thunder. 

Without the bitterness of woe, the sweetness of sub- 
mission, 

Who knoweth ? How should sinners know, untorn by 
sharp contrition, 

The softness of God's healing hand as broken hearts it 
bindeth, 

When, coming from a famished land, His prodigals He 
findeth ? 

Earth's forfeiture and penal pain have oft won heaven's 
preferment. 

It needs not only sun, but rain, to bleach our wedding- 
garment ; 

And, ah ! much wormwood, myrrh, and rue must 'mid 
our flowers be planted 

Before, our Master's work to do, we gain the strength 
we wanted ! 



145 

As up the skies the Son of Man did lead them on, " Ad 

Astra " 
Was half the watch-word of our van ; the other was 

"per Asp ret?' 
They climbed and reached their crowns, before, of crosses 

transitory, 
Wrought out, — a far exceeding more, eternal weight of 

glory. 



SOBER SAWS. 

' Look up, and not down ; forward, and not back ; out, and not in." 

Popular Maxims. 

Look forth, look forth, my spirit ! — 
But sometimes look within, 
Lest, while thou art manning the postern, 
Fast in the hold sits Sin. 

Look onward, on, my spirit ! — 
But sometimes still look back, 
To see that no foe behind thee 

Doth lurk on the past's long track, — 

No wrong thou hast done, unrighted, 
No promise that's yet unkept. — 
Is mire on thy wedding-garment, 
With cleansing tears unwept ? 

Look up, — not down, — my spirit ! — 
And see how the birds, that fly 



146 

Against the cloud, look snowy, 
But dark against the sky. 

Thy life may show fair, my spirit, 
'Gainst the cloud of the lives of men. 
To the heaven of Christ and His angels, 

When Thou comest, — then, — what then ? 



TWO WISHES. 

Oh, to die and be at rest, — 

To sink beneath life's load, 
And to see, from closing eyes, 

Fade away its long, long road ! — 
To turn from the Sphinx of Time, 

Putting fearful questions still, — 
In a mountain's leafy glooms, 

By the side of a lulling rill, 
While yet the wild-flower blooms 

And the happy birds sing on, 
To lie and only know 

The peace of the dead and gone ! 

Nay, to live ! — to serve God and Man, 
With warm hand and a dauntless breast, 

Till the battle of life is won, 
And never to dream of rest 

Till the whole of my work is done ! — 



147 

To stand in the field and reap 
Till the Sunset has gone to sleep, 
And voices grow faint and few, 
And my blood runs cold in the dew, — 

Till the twinkling, beckoning stars are come, 
And clear sounds the Master's call, — 

Then to follow the last of my comrades home, 
With the fullest wain of all ! 



MEMORY. 

Haggard, envious Memory, 
Tell this heavy heart, 

Ever haunted by thee, 
What thou wilt and art. 

Vampire, wouldst thou drain us 
Of our life's best blood ? — 

Harpy, turn to loathing 
All our wholesome food ? 

Sorceress, wouldst thou cripple 
In its prime our might, 

Smit with nerveless palsy 
In the half-fought fight ? 

Sudden ghosts thou raisest 
In our merriest hours. 

Bitter draughts thou pressest 
From our sweetest flowers. 



148 

While our bounteous orchards 

Toss their juicy fruit, 
Thou must show us saplings 

Wormy from the root. 

While the sweat-browed Present, 
'Mid his bearded grains, 

Shouteth for our sickles, 
Sturdy arms, and wains, — 

While the gay young Future 
Claps his beckoning hands, 

Eager forth to lead us 
To his golden lands, — 

Thou dost drag us backward, 

Praying us to waste 
Our daylight searching with thee 

The grave-yard of the Past, 

Carving deep a tomb-stone 

O'er each joy of yore ; 
Sobbing still, " It hath been ! 

It shall be no more! " 

Loose my skirts ! I deem thee 

But a hungrier ghoul, 
Not the body only 

Gnawing, but the soul. 



i t>> 



Many parts thou playest, 
Over-full of grief, 



149 

Shame, or baffled longings, 
Hopeless of relief ; 

Like a withered old-wife, 

Standing in the snows, 
By a rime-gilt thorn-bush, 

Whence a summer rose 

Once her lover plucked her, 

Who, before she wed, 
Slumbered in a churchyard 

In a loamy bed, 

Tarrying still to wonder, 
Shivering and benumbed, 

If indeed her roses 

And girlhood ever bloomed, — 

If the stripling ever 

Lived, who left her lone, — 
Turned into a coffin, 

Dust, and crumbling bone; — 

From the fire-lit farm-house, 
While chubby grandsons strain 

Their blue eyes for her coming, 
Through the dusk in vain, 

Pressing to the window 

Their red cheeks in a mass, 

Like roses in a green-house, 
Framed dim with dewy glass : - 



ISO 

Like a scared monk, scourging 
His ribs for sins of yore, 

Till the famished beggars 
Die around his door : — 

Like a Copt * who turneth 
From the twittering shade, 

By bird-haunted acacia 

And feathery palm-tree made, 

To the bright dumb desert, 
For the notes that rang 

O'er the sands at sunrise, 
When stone Memnon sang 

To the sand-sprung statues, 

Set in endless rows, 
With blank eyes meeting over 

Old Nile that 'twixt them flows, 

And echoing Sphinx replying, 

Faint and far away, 
In the dawning ages, 

At the dawn of day : — 

Like a miser, lingering 

In a sinking ship, 
Though the stooping bowsprit 

In the wave doth dip, 

Groping for a coffer, 
In the plashing hold, 

* See Note XIX. 



i5i 

Missing from the treasures 
Of his fast-clutched gold : — 

Or a pale knight sitting 

On a field of slain, 
With his treacherous jack-boot 

Stricken sheer in twain, 

Marking not how freely 
From each unstanched vein 

The deserter life-blood 
Fleeth forth amain, 

Nor his neighing charger, 
Nor coming foes, because 

He holds and eyes his severed foot, 
And thinks how fleet it was. — 

To the brimstone-lighted 
Caverns take thy show, — 

Hence away forever, — 
Of idle, wasteful woe ! 

With the Cross I'll sign thee ! — 

Can my eyes be true ? 
See ! she shoots transfigured 

Up the sunlit blue, 

Changed from hag to angel ; 

And around her Hope, 
Playing, flutters blithely 

To heaven's azure cope, — 



152 

(So butterflies fly twirling, — 
Twin butterflies fly over, — 

In their twine so airy — 
Fields of blushing clover.) 

From their wings they shower 
Light to drown earth's gloom, 

Pointing to a garden, 
And an open tomb, 

To the cast-off grave-clothes, 
To the conquered Cross, — 

Pledge of Heaven's thrice-payment 
For each hallowed loss, — 

Bright the track retracing, 
Which the Saviour trod, 

From his wars returning 
To the throne of God ! 



THE WRECK. 

She lies embedded in the sands ; 
Her planks were hewn by dead men's hands ; 
Her ordered ghastliness more drear 
Than shapeless ruin showeth. Here, 
Like some long-slain sea-monster's bones 
Pushed upward 'twixt green, slimy stones, 
Some single ribs rise o'er the strand ; 
There two bleak rows confronting stand, 



153 

Still drawing closer till they reach 
Her piteous keel fast in the beach ; 
And barnacles and muscles deck, 
For all her ornaments, the wreck ! 

She lies and wastes, forgot her name, 
With none to care and none to claim. 
The summer sun and winter storm, 
In turn, beat on what was her form. 
How fair her leafy timbers stood, 
How full of sap, where towered the wood ! 
How gayly sang the " lumber-men " 
That felled and sent them down their glen, 
Gliding and leaping with the stream 
That taught them first to float and swim ! 
How proud were master, helmsman, crew 
Of craft so gallant, stanch, and new ! 
Where are they now ? We only know, 
In heaven above or hell below. 



My life, alone I tread thy deck, — 
To see thee running unto wreck, — 
As firmly as in youth I trod, 
And ask no pity save of God. 
Thy sails are rent, that swelling spread ; 
Thy crew of climbing hopes are dead ; 
Thy prow is driving on that shore 
Which he who strikes shall sail no more. 
An-hungered and at hirst I stand, 
But faint not. To the far-off land, 



154 

Unseen through mists and flying rack, 
I steadfast look, and look not back. 
Beyond the tempests there are calms ; 
Behind their roar, the angels' psalms, 
And God ; and to the haven He 
So bringeth me where I would be. 



ON THE WHITE HILLS. 

Beautiful brook of silvery flow 
Singing thy songs of long ago, 
Singing thy songs of thy mother, the mount 
That suckled thee out of her breast's pure fount, 
Where the clouds pitched tents for her and thee, 
And the eagles' wings were thy canopy, 
Lightnings thy lamps ; and around the sky 
The handmaid thunders thy lullaby, 
With voices unearthly pealed amain, 
To stun thee to slumber, but all in vain ; — 
Singing thy songs of the hours that be, 
And the grand, wild woods that make walls for thee, 
Fain to imprison and keep thee in, 
Where the sparrows twitter to thy sweet din, 
And the wood-thrush pipes and cooes the dove, 
And the robin carols, "Bide here, my love," — 
Singing thy songs of the days to come 
And the boundless ocean to be thy home, — 
With gathering force 'neath thy tresses so hoar, 
Thou followest the floods that have fled before. 



155 

I am alone on the castle-wall 
Of rocks that tower o'er thy loveliest fall. 
Harebells look, with their glad blue eyes,* 
Up in the face of the smiling skies. 
Spiry cedars beside me stand 
Rearing the turrets of fairy-land, 
Gemmed with berries of purple hue. 
Balm-breathed breezes come wandering through ; 
And wave on the soft, enchanted air 
Streamers of creepers, green and fair. 

Past and present and future seem 
Mingling all in one magic dream. 
Here climbs my eld with no faltering tread ; 
But they who had climbed with me once are dead ; 
And I hear thee chant, in thy mystical lore, 
Of life, that's behind me, and death before. 

Dear to my ear comes thy triumphing voice, 
Bidding me, like thee, through all to rejoice, 
Gaining and giving to speed me along, 
Setting the hard and the rugged to song, 
To leap the steep bravely, glide calm o'er the plain, 
Holding my shortening way toward the main, 
Still, till at last my long-led road 
Finds its goal in a welcoming God. 

*See Note XX. 



156 



TIME ON TRIAL. 

" Come, one more chat, my dear old friend, ere off the 
course we fare ; 

Pale gleams a mile-stone towards the end ; behold my 
first gray hair ! 

Let's sit upon our youth's green grave and, with an idle 
rhyme, 

Kill him its mortal stroke who gave, the stealthy mur- 
derer, Time. 

(" It was not slain by Cupid's dart, nor choked by 
fumes that boil, 
Around the flagging brain and heart, up from the mid- 
night oil. 
Two creditable coroners, we with belief profound 
Aver, it from a scythe received its fatal, only wound.) 

" Let's make ourselves a learned bench and go, as 

best may fit, 
Wool-gathering far and wide, to fill the wool-sack of our 

wit ; 
For lo, what ghostly Wellers climb from wide-sown 

tombs and cry, 
' He was with us, that very Time ; we have a alibi'! 

" Oh, yes ! oh, yes ! — Come say your say, — you, who 
with dust look dim, 
In festal, though in worn, array, — what do you know of 
him?" 



iS7 

" He was our dancing-master then ; and many a lively 

tweedle, 
When we like you were breathing men, he played us on 

his fiddle. 
He jigged us through life's idle round, with antics light 

and vain, 
Then bade us to our places prance in nothingness again." 

" Now you, in ghostly spectacles ? " — " He trained us 
up to fame. 
He taught us letters, science, arts. He carved for us a 
name." 

" And you, with daggers and with masks and flame- 
scorched gear so grim, 
Of you in turn doth Justice ask, What did you know of 

him ? " 

" He taught us horrid tragedies, — that while, — well 
stuffed with crime, 
To act upon his blood-stained stage ere we had done 
with Time." 

" But, from the ' cloud of witnesses ' above, — oh, what 
had you 
Down gazing, glory in each face, with such a one to do ? " 

" Small cords of holy minutes, hours, days, weeks, and 
months he spun, 
To make us the long rope-ladders whereby the heavens 
we won." 



i 5 8 

" He shakes his hour-glass gray at us. Our solemn 

suit unheeding, 
He goes his way. But for contempt, and for neglect of 

pleading, 
We'll sentence him beyond our bar : Spite of his beard 

so hoary 
The author of ' The Earth and Stars ' * shall crush him, 

like Giles Cory ; f 
And let, whene'er they will, or can, the bards of our 

good town, 
With all who well his forelock seize, bear off his scalp, 

renown." 



LIFE AND THE MENDICANT. 

" Life, from morn until noon, 

I have sat at your gate. 
When I plead for a boon, 

Still you say to me, ' Wait.' 
Has the future in store 

Only hours such as these ? 
Does your cup hold no more 

But the foam and the lees ? " 

Life said to me coolly, 

" Before I can grant 
Your suit, state more fully : 

What is it you want ? " 

" ' What I want ' ? I am dumb ! 
Give a voice high and clear 

* See Note XXI . t See Note XXII. 



159 

That angels might come, 

'Light, and linger to hear. 
I am halt ! Wings unfurled 

Give unto me, that o'er 
The dust of this world 

Shall aloft with me soar. 
I am blind ! Give an eye, 

In the whirl of your wheel, 
With woe's wide tire, to spy 

The fixed axle of weal, 
And the wherefore to trace 

Of the ills of this earth. 
Give"— 

Life laughed in my face 
With a laugh not of mirth : 

" 'Tis enough. We must own 
That his needs are not few. — 

Was it ever yet known 
That a chrysalis flew ? — 

And what next, and what more 
Would this bold beggar beg 

Ere he go from my door ? — 
Pray you, sir, sings the egg ? 

Sees the cat's babe new-born ? - 
Warder Death, in your keep 

Lay away till the morn, 
This stout suitor to sleep ; 

And to-morrow, do you, 
Over moon, sun, and star, 

Lead him up for his due 
To Eternity's bar." 



i6o 



INVITA MUSA. 

" Whom best I love, I cross." 

Jtipiter, in ' ' Cyntbeline. ' ' 

I told the Muse one day, 
" Thou dost with me but play. 
Some power thou givest me, — a little sweetness,- 
But all in incompleteness. 
In unappeased rejection, 
I yearn towards thy perfection. 
How canst thou thus, O rover, 
Or fly before thy lover, 
Or yield — thy finger's tip ? — 
Oh, press with thine my lip, 
And mine of thee will sing 
Till earth to heaven shall with thy glory ring ! 

" From dawn till noon I woo, 
And vainly still pursue, — 
From childhood unto prime, — 
I do but waste my time, — 
And if to hoary age, 
I know my life's last page 
Will only read, like all that went before, 
' This marksman almost hit his mark,' — no more. 

She soared and played above me 
And sang, " Thou who dost love me, 
Know that I love thee, too, 
And what I do, I do 



i6i 

That thou to me be ever true. 

For, if I gave thee all, 

Thou wert no more my thrall, 

But, having won my best and done thy best, 

Wouldst choose a lower queen, a lower quest." 

She struck the lyre and sung, 
" My sister heard Pygmalion's pleading tongue. 
Through her, he wrought one perfect work of yore. 
In love with his own work, he wrought no more. 
He stooped from the divine unto the human, — 
He turned from her to worship but a woman ! 

" Not sitting at the goal, 
But straining on the race-course nerves the soul. 
I will thee to aspire, 

Not choke with laurels green my kindling fire ; 
And reverent still should be, 

Not puffed with pride, who would find grace with 
me." 



THE DREAMING ARIANA, 

A FANTASY. 

Where is Ariana gone ? — 
Damsel fairer than the Dawn, 

And more tender and more stately than the Night, 
With the glorious amber eyes 
Full of dearest mysteries 

Ever thrilling with an inward holy light ? — 



1 62 

Hast thou seen her, O thou Sun ? 
" Yes, but, ah, she did me shun ! — 

Stolen from me by the Shadows unto Sleep, 
He hath wooed her to his calm. 
He hath poured o'er her his balm. 

Who behold my hard and cruel face, they weep." 

Hast thou seen her, O thou Moon ? 
" Yes, I looked on her at noon ; 

And for envy I was pale within the sky ; 
But at eve I loved her, too, 
And my silver o'er her threw 

Where she fled, — when bustling Day had hurried 
by."- 

Have ye seen her, O ye Stars ? — 
" Yes, at Twilight's cloudy bars, 

Have we crowded one another for a peep ; 
And we wooed her with our rays 
Till she shut her weary gaze, 

From us all, in Slumber's pearly-gated keep. 

" Now she sails along the streams 
Of sweet fairy-land ; and Dreams 

Are the rowers and the helmsman of her boat. 
Water-lilies seem to swim 
All around her, to the rim 

Of the river where the maiden lies afloat, 

" Swinging round their censers fair, 
Till the luscious dewy air 



i6 3 

Is enchanted with the incense that they pour, — 
While her peace doth grow more deep, 
And her beauty, touched by Sleep, 

Showeth ever more unearthly than before ; — 

" And they strive to kiss her hand 
As, with gesture of command, 

All unconsciously it lies upon the wave, 
Lifting cold and pure their lips 
Towards her rosy finger-tips, 

That the emulous tremulous ripples rise to lave. 

" And the Night-wind holds his breath. 
Even Echo, still as Death, 

Is forbidden, with a word, her trance to break. 
But the Nightingale sings on, — 
Sings a spell that, o'er her thrown, 

Holdeth Grief at bay, that fain would bid her wake." 

Where will Ariana go ? 
" Ask the elves, for they may know." 

Oh, they say, " Anon a bed of asphodel 
Soft and golden, she shall find 
'Neath a cypress, to her mind, 

And shall rest upon it all too long and well ! " 



164 
TO R. (H.) L. 

A NEW YEAR'S SONNET. 

Fair opening flower, moss-crowned, without a thorn, 
To you my moulting nightingale would sing, — 
Perched near your heart not now a bird forlorn, — 
With notes it twittered in a by-gone spring, 
And in your summer find anew a voice 
Foretelling blithely many a glad new year 
For you, for all who in your bloom rejoice 
And feel their life, through yours, become more dear. 
It sings, " Wild winds, in music on. her play 
As bolus's harp were in her breast ; 
Clouds, melt to rainbow dews ; from day to day, 
Suns, shine benign, still ripening good to best ; 
And thrive with deathless leaves from bud to root, 
Sweet human rose reared at a hawthorn's foot." 



SONNET. 

(Given to a friend on her departure for Europe, and supposed to be accompanied 
with a Prince Rupert's Drop.) 

" Sweet friend, this magic crystal ball or ' drop,' 
That mirrors gay the play of earth and welkin, 
Wrought princely Rupert. (He, you know, would stop 
Battering fair towers and towns amid his fell kin, 
Sometimes, and, for man's twofold good, withdraw 
To cells where, from the trench and mine far distant, 



i6 5 

Is wont the student mild of chymic law 
But to blow up himself and his assistant.)" — 
" I'll break that apex off, for so it must 
Be in its own small sphere complete." — " Pray do." — 
Crack ! Naught but ruin and a heap of dust. — 
" Such was my life ; such is my life since you 
Are breaking from it, — with a flying foot 
To bound o'er ocean with a seven-league *****. 



FORNEY THE JAILER.* 

" What's the matter to-night ? — All the county's up 

yelling, 
And thronging in numbers that pass a clerk's telling, 
On horseback and muleback, in carts and afoot, — 
With bludgeons and rifles, and cables to boot, — 
In broadcloth and butternut ! Look, some in masks 
Like miscreants bent on unnamable tasks ! " — 
" It's matter enough, and they'll soon have their will ; 
They're bound for the prison to lynch Negro Bill." 
" He's a sassy ole nigger, — no need to look furder, — 
He, or somebody sure, has committed a murder." 
" But he can't be given up." "We will see; I would 

say 
'Twould be prudent if Forney got out of the way, — 
Old Forney the jailer." 

" Hello !" — " What d'ye want ?" — « See there! 
There Forney stands, 

* See Note XXIII. 



i66 

With his rusty old keys in his knobby old hands, 
Spying out through the bars like a rat in a cage ! " 
" Here, we don't wish to fight with a man of your age ; 
You jest let us in. What we want, then you'll see. 
We'll not harm ye, but" — "That's as hereafter may 
be," 

Says Forney the jailer. 

He looks right and left ; and he sees the jail hemmed 
All around by his foes ; but, " A man uncondemned, 
Were he wicked as Satan, is sacred as Christ 
In my charge. Get ye gone, with this answer sufficed. 
Bill's blameless as you are, for all that ye know. 
Is the trade of Jack Ketch to be coveted so ? " * 
Says Forney the jailer. 

" We'll give you five minutes to open that door." 
" An it like you, I'll take my own time as before." 
" Your grimy old den, round your ears we'll pull 

down." 
" We'll not leave on another one mouldy old stone." 
" I never agreed for repairs to be bound, 
But while I'm alive, I'll at least keep my ground," 
Says Forney the jailer. 

"Time's up. Blacksmith, — sledge-hammer? — lay 
that gate low." — 
" Drive out the old Adam, ha, ha ! " " Ho, ho, ho ! "— 
With a bang, clang, and clamour, it creaks and it cracks. 
" Hurrah ! " It gives in to the hammer and axe ! 

* See Note XXIV. 



1 67 

Rough hands on the keeper are clustering like bees : 
" Your keys or your life ! " " For my life, as you 
please," 

Says Forney the jailer. 

His fingers are clinching with all might and main ; 
Wrenched, bleeding, and rifled, they clutch all in vain. 
The torch-bearing ruffians the corridors fill ; 
Many prisoners they find ; but they do not find Bill. 
" Now where is our man ? You were wisest to tell." 
"Ay, where ? " But they come to an iron-bound cell. 
They seek for a window, the negro to see. 
There's no chink nor crevice. They try every key. 
Smiles Forney the jailer. 

" You villain, you, teach us the trick of the lock ! " 
They hedge him with pistols ; they sway and they rock. 
" Say your prayers," and they dash the old man to the 

floor. 
" Hold ! " " Hark ! " From without comes a shout and 

a roar. 
" What ? " — " Lost on the mountains ? " — The murdered 

man's found ! 
He breaks through the mob, and he stands safe and 
sound 
O'er Forney the jailer. 

"Help up the old man, — lift," — "Shame, shame!" 
" Have a care ! " 
" Some water here, quick ! " " Give him room ! " " Give 
him air ! " 



i68 

" Give him something that's stronger, you fools ! Here's 

my flask." 
" Let's scatter before we are taken to task, 
For Forney the jailer." 

" Hide like snakes, — and thank God if this night's 

evil-doing 
Leaves no stains on your souls for your evermore ruing ; 
And while you thank Him Who hath now been once 

more 
To the needy a refuge, as often before, 
A strength to the poor in his lonely distress, 
To the guiltless appointed to die, a redress, 
Don't forget to thank one whom He set to stand fast 
When like to the storm on the wall, was the blast 
Of the terrible ones by the Evil One led, — 
Many-handed and brainless, and deaf as the dead, — 
Thank Forney the jailer ! " 



"NOT ALL A DREAM."* 

Boston, 1896. 

First Citizen. 

" I had a dream, the other night, 
That made me shake in my sleep with fright." 

Second Citizen. 

" If you remember, I pray you tell 
Your dream." 

* See Note XXV. 



169 

First Citizen. 

" I remember it all too well : 
Out in the bleak, benighted street, 
One with wounds in his hands and feet, 
A stab, near the heart,— that seemed a spear's, — 
Pouring out freshly blood and tears, 
And on his thorn-pricked brow a frown, 
Was going away from Boston town. 
I fell on my knees in sore dismay, 
And cried, ' Lord, Lord, why wilt Thou not stay ? ' 

" < Why call me Lord, Lord ! — and not obey, 
111 servants, the things that to you I say ? — 
From heaven have I come on My earthly rounds, 
To find in your churlish, unkindly bounds, 
That birds have their nests, and their tombs, the dead, 
But I have not where to lay My head ! ' 

" Once again, in amazed woe, 
I cried, ' Oh Master, not so, not so ! 
See the temples which round us rise, 
With spires that point to Thee in the skies. 
Thither the ways are weekly trod 
By throngs to worship Thee as their God, 
With psalms and alms that Thy grace should win,' — 

"'lama stranger ; ye take Me not in ; 
For a pilgrim shepherd of My sheep, 
Out of your doors this night ye keep ! 

Have I not said, 

Have ye not read, 



170 

Nor heard 

That word 
Which, eighteen hundred winters old, 
Still to My deaf -eared Church is told : 
1 Who receives whom I send, receiveth Me ; 
As ye do to My brethren, to Me do ye ' ? 

" He shook the dust from His pierced feet, 
And yet on my ear falls, sternly sweet, 
A voice that spake, as He turned away, 
Of ' Sodom,' — * Gomorrah/ — ' the judgment day ! ' " 



CASUS BELLI. 
"The Maine was blown up!" 

" And who blew up the Maine ? — 
Some Cuban ? — Some Yankee ? — Some rascal of 
Spain ? " — 

" That we cannot explain ; 

For I do not know, 

Though I seek high and low ; 
And thou dost not know, though thou look left and 

right ; 
And he doth not know, while most eager for light ; 
And we do not know, though we all rack our brains ; 
Ye or you do not know if 'twas our fault, or Spain's ; 

Nor do they yet know more, 

Though they seek and explore. 



171 

" So, go to ! Let us punish each other, 

By the lynch-law of nations, 

With great devastations, 
And every good man kill his brother. 

Hurl the torch ! — Fire will spread, — 

Many living be dead ; 

For, where'er it may fall, 

The nations stand all 
Like so many powder-casks, opened aright 
To belch forth for ruin and frenzied affright. 
Ho, for lyddite and dynamite, Mauser and shell ! 
(Christian chemists and armourers make them so well ! ") 

" Heigho ! " saith Satan. " Who blew up the Maine, 
Only I can explain. 
Wherefore let Jingo reign." 



A WAR-SONG. 

" My country, 'tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing." 

" A merica. " 

My country, hark and hear ! 

There's a cry from over the sea ; 
The helpless cry in vain, — 

Great heavens ! — they cry out on thee ! 

They fight for freedom, — they, — 
As our fathers fought of yore ; 

And they hoped in thee for aid ; 

Thou hast drowned their hopes in gore ! 



172 

Oh, wert thou blind or mad, 

When Spain from her war-worn path 
Turned for thy sake aside, 

That thou chosest the way of wrath ? — 

That the olive-branch she held, 

Thou didst tear in thy raging mood ? — 
Thou hast let thy tiger loose ; 

And the tiger hath tasted blood ! 

From slaying the poor Malays 

Canst thou lead him back to the cage ? 
Or, when he is sated there, 

Will he turn and rend thine age ? 

Where art thy young men gone ? — 
Young men in the joy of youth ! — 

Thou badst them go. They went, 
Beguiled by a strange untruth 

Taught by the Father of Lies, 
From each dear familiar place. 

They thought that they served thee well, 
In serving thy self -disgrace. 

In their alien graves they lie, 
With their palms of life unwon ; 

And thou canst not call them home 
To the deeds they should have done, — 

Unto great deeds gladly done, 

Murd'ress-mother, in this their day, 



173 

For thee. — On thy hands are stains 
That tears cannot wash away. 

Satan must have his say ; 

But when at last the shout, 
When the plaudit, the cheer, the roar, 

Of the maddened mob die out, 

Through a silence worse than death's, 
Thou may st hear the Master's word, 

Too late : " They that take the sword 
Shall perish by the sword ! " 



JUDGMENT TO COME.* 

"The Holy Ghost is beginning to arouse the conscience of Christendom against the 
superstition of war." 

" Neighbour, thy face looks white and bleak ; 

Tell me, where art thou going ? " 
" I go through the grave and the gate of Death." 

" And then ? " " That is past my knowing." 

" Neighbour, good neighbour, say not so ; 

The laws are graved on the portal 
With words of cheer, or words of fear, 

For every entering mortal. 

" Hast thou brought the hapless stranger in 

To thy kindly hearth and board, 
Or sought him out, in his lone sick bed 

Or jail, in the name of the Lord ? 

* See Note XXVI. 



174 

" Then, ' Come, thou blest of my Father, come ! ' 

Thy Lord will say to thee ; 
' If thou didst it unto one of Mine, 

Thou hast done it unto Me.' " 

" The strangers I sought in their far-off lands, 

To plunder, to maim, to slay, 
To reave them of children and wives, — their homes 

In ashes so red to lay." 

" Ruffian and murderer ! With the fiends 

Thy portion needs must be ; 
For the Lord saith, ' What thou dost to Mine 

Thou doest it unto Me.' " 

" Nay ; for I followed a multitude 

When I went to do this evil ; 
The long streets cheered ; and we called it War ! " 

" Did Christ lead, or the devil ? 

" Neighbour, for what hast thou sold thy soul ? 

For hire ? For a flaunting pennant ? 
To be for twelvemonths four, or eight, 

Of an old White House the tenant ? 

" Now say to the mountains, ' Fall on me,' 

And ' Cover me ' to the hills ; 
Through the opening door, an awful Voice 

My shuddering ear it fills : 

" < Thou hast wrought My brethren's misery, 
And unto thyself wrought woe ; 



175 

The lusts of thy father thou hast done, 
And thou to him must go ! 

" ' Go, get thee hence to the deathless worm ! 

Get thee hence to the fiery sea ! 
For what thou didst to the least of Mine, 

Thou hast done it unto Me ! ' " 



ROSE ROCK. 

[From " Herman or Young Knighthood."] 

Wild rock 'mid wild roses, I climb thee once more. 
My steps crush the lichens that pave thy rough floor. 
Stretching far into silence, I see the white reach, — 
That roars at my feet — of thy foam-girdled beach. 
Again thy white sea-gulls soar high o'er my head ; 
Thy pennons of dulse gleam below, wet and red. 
I hear thy free gales round me pipe as of old ; 
I breathe their salt breath, and the crimson-and-goid 
Floating sunset behold, that has dropped from the sky,. 
From its still twin above, on the sea's lap to lie 
And, weary of quiet, to roll and be tossed 
Till its gay ruddy play in the twilight is lost. 
While, searching the distance, my furthest long look 
Can scarcely discover the dim cloud of smoke, — 
The emblem wherewith the horizon doth frown, 
Of labour and care left behind with the town, — 
The old beacon his torch 'gins to nourish aright, 
And anew tears the fog with its sharp point of light ; 
And my every quick fibre is thrilled with the wild 
Yet innocent joy of a passionate child ! 



176 

Oh, say not that Eden was shut to our race, 
When Adam and Eve first fell into disgrace, 
Forever and wholly ! Through infancy's door, 
Each soul gets its glimpse of the glories of yore. 
Each soul has its own dim, sweet eld, and its share 
Of a pure world's green youth, like that mischievous 

pair; 
There's for each some charmed spot, by rock, lake, 

wood, or rill, 
Where his childhood outgrown keeps its tryst with him 

still. 
Who, who does not know how the pilgrim's heart burns, 
When from new haunts and mates by himself he re- 
turns, 
Like one thread drawn out straight from the tangle of 

life, 
To his playground of old, of old memories rife ? 
Returns he to this from the dry beaten track, 
His infancy's Eden, it renders him back. 

One seeks the flat inland and, bosomed in trees 
And dotted with hay-cocks, his Paradise sees, 
With an orchard and hedge choked, and choking with 

green 
The soft, pretty, drowsy, and spiritless scene. 
All is still, save the apples that drop over-ripe ; 
But, to show where the farm-house lies smoking its pipe, 
There's a chimney half-seen, with some blue wreaths 

that pass 
Through the leaves, like a toper's who smokes in long 

grass, 



177 

Disposed on his back, and unseen cattle keep 

Up a sound like his breath's when his slumber is deep. 

White clouds dream o'erhead in a still azure sky ; 

And a slow, shady brook purls a lullaby by. 

While I'm able, my flight let me prudently take, 

Lest I sink in a stupor and never awake. 

But look ! Who goes there ? What a fire from his 

eyes 
Flashes on the tame landscape around him that lies ! 
Tis the pilgrim ; sly Memory is casting her spell, 
For him, o'er hedge, hay-cock, and moss-covered well. 
He cries, "Earth can show no more exquisite spot ! " 
I know it is lovely, though I love it not. 

One goes back to look for his light-hearted joy, 
To the lone, lofty dell whence he rushed when a boy. 
I have met him emerging ; and, lo, it was plain 
From the glow in his face that he looked not in vain ! 
But his mountains are jailers, and build up their walls 
To shut in the fancy. Their chill shadow falls 
On my heart, pent within them ; their pale mists to 

me 
Are but vapours, and blue ones ; I chafe to break free ; — 
My soul's boundless being cries out for a place 
Where, unpinched, it may widen in limitless space ; — 
But when, shivering, I climb them, since they are so 

high, 
How hopelessly distant appeareth the sky ! 

Here no harsh line divides us ; the bowing heavens 
sink 



i;8 

To kiss Earth's round cheek on the sea's brimming 

brink. 
The ship through the moonlight that glides over there, — 
In water or sky, — well might swim through the air, 
For aught that I see, and my spirit to rest 
Waft away with its sails to the home of the blest, 
Or on, in a long voyage never to cease, 
Bear me, 'twixt earth and heaven, in moonlight and 

peace. 

Wild king, crowned with roses, I sit on thy throne, 
And make thy sweet sceptre of mullein my own, 
And thank the kind Fates that the rush and the roar, 
The sweep and the surge of the much-shouting shore, 
Gave my boyhood, and thee for my memory's shrine ! 
Once more salt my lips with the breath of thy brine. 
Let thy wild romping wind in my face fling thy foam ; 
'Tis my old nurse' rough kiss that still welcomes me 

home. 
Since we met, thou, alone and forsaken, hast stood, — 
Unshaken, unworn, — winter, tempest, and flood ; 
At thy bald, hoary head, sleet and hail-stones were 

hurled 
While I played the deserter. The much-abused world, 
Howe'er with its servants or slaves it may be, 
Has never been cruel or treacherous to me. 
I've mused by the lamp ; I have mixed with the throng ; 
I've shared in the feast ; I have joined in the song ; 
I've laughed with the gayest ; but naught could I find, 
Believe me, old play-fellow, more to my mind 
Than to sit down once more by the side of the sea, 
Alone with glad Nature, Hope, Memory, and thee. 



179 

Whether, sunken and shrunk, thou dost wade or dost 

swim 
In the waves, when the ocean is full to the brim, 
Or risest to make, at the turn of the tide, 
Thy dripping, dark garments' low borders all wide, 
With a fringe of black sea-weed, — old Pharisee ! — here 
Receive me on pilgrimage year after year, 
In peace to look back on the year that is gone, — 
Its battles all over, its victories won, — 
To count o'er its wounds but by glorious scars, — 
Then send me back, armed with fresh strength, to the 

wars. 
While thou keep'st thy roses, bid me keep my truth ; 
So shall age in us both wear the crown of our youth. 
Taught by thee, let me smile with as equal a front 
At the sun, and anon of the storm bide the brunt, 
As thou dost, through all my strong manhood ; but 

when 
I'm pushed to the verge of my threescore and ten, 
When the sum of my sunbeams and starbeams is told, 
And this foot, fleet and sure, totters down to the mould, 
When old Death comes to bring me his hellebore-cup, 
On this mossy altar, Earth, offer me up ; 
For my spirit, through no gloomy valley, would go 
To its blue heaven above from its green heaven below. 



i So 
POT AGE AUX PANTOUFLES. 

A FABLE.* 

To the mighty king of France, 

Did the royal cook advance ; 
And he louted low and said, " To his liege sinner, 

Please his majesty declare 

Whether I shall dress a hare, 
Dodo, unicorn, or phoenix, for his dinner ? " 

With a glance that thrilled with awe, 

Quoth that haughty monarch, " Pshaw ! 
What care I ? Dress what you will, — dress my old 
slippers." — 

And the cook quaked, and withdrew 

Straight his roasting-jacks unto, 
His spits, and eke his dredging-box and dippers ; 

While his majesty of France 

Hence betook him to the dance, 
To the "stately pavon and the swift coranto," 

Then, forspent with whirl and hop, 

Bade the breathless minstrels stop, 
And the regal board, with hungry strides, he ran to : 

" Haste, what ho, my varlets all ! 
For the tarrying banquet call," 
So he called ; and so they called, and served him rarely. 

*See Note XXVII. 



i8i 

" Now, what is this goodly stuff ? 
Can I ever get enough ? 
Help me, pantler, — yet again, — and not too sparely. 

" Ye, my courtiers, have a care. 

How ye taste the same, beware ; 
For it might not suit a stomach less than royal, 

Being fitted for a king. 

Hie, ye knaves, and forthwith bring 
To the presence here, my cook so true and loyal. 

" Cook," he thickly as he ate 

Cried, " what is this dainty cate, 
That's so savoury, so luscious, and so tender ? 

In what market was it bought ? " 

" Please your grace, 'twas only wrought 
Of the slippers that you deigned to surrender," 

Spake the chef, with modest pride. 

Not in vain his best he tried, 
For his sovereign long his praises went repeating ; 

But it was his own good will, 

Sauces, spices, taste, and skill, 
Which made all that in that dish was worth the eating. 

MORAL. 

Thus, O generous Mr. * * * * *, 

With your [metaphor ic] lute, 
Don't you sometimes make a song that is delicious 

Of what others have thrown off, — 

Pray, don't think I mean to scoff, — 
Of a substance that may be a wee suspicious ? 



182 



THE IVY POET, 

I. On an Epidemic of Mumps in a 
Certain University Town. 

Sing, pitying Muse, the classic mumps, 

With direful notes, in doleful dumps ; 

And, while thy hand the lyre bethumps, 

Bid y£olus, with jaws in lumps 

Unsightly as Thersites' humps, 

To hurry through the laurel clumps, 

And leave them naught but leafless stumps, 

And blow on Fame's most strident trumps, 

More drear to hear than wheezing pumps, 

Till Pegasus affrighted jumps 

And from Parnassus headlong plumps, 

And lies below a mass of bumps, — 

Alas ! — like those of classic mumps ! 



II. On a Certain Fire-alarm. 

January ioth, 1889. 

Tell us what that sound so harsh is, 
Roaring o'er the western marshes. 
Do all ghosts of beeves, i n B******* 
Ever massacred, to frighten 

Us, moo-00-00-00 ? 
Or perhaps the classic Cacus, 
With design to crazy make us, 
Drags Dan Hercules his cattle 



183 

By their tails, in blatant battle, 
Back his cave unto. 

Nay ; each night and noon and morning, 
All our plaints and anguish scorning, 
With his steam, some horrid fellow 
Evermore doth bellow, bellow — 

Low-low-low-low-low ! 
From that endless howl, our sorrow 
Bitterer bitterness doth borrow ; 
With our sweetest songs do mingle 
Discords, causing ears to tingle. 

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ! 

" By, by, by," the nurse doth warble ; 
Like a child of carven marble, 
Would the pretty baby slumber, 
But ye, times withouten number, 

Raise your cry and hue. 
On the couch of sickness wearing, 
Hear the patient sufferer — swearing, 
When, in spite of hops and chloral, 
Reaches him your worse than Choral, 

Shuttered windows through ! 

Stop your noise, ye men fB*******! 
Is there needful to enlighten 
You alone, when there's a fire 
In a shop, afar or nigher, 
Such a wide halloo ? 
Can't you bear it, if you're singein', 



1 84 

Like a mute, war-painted Injin, 
Nor beyond a squaw be squalling, 
Till the neighbours names are calling 
You ? — Do-o-o-o ! 

Else, perchance, we, in some season 
When we quite have lost our reason, 
Shall in one good conflagration 
Burn up, to your consternation, 

All of you-ou-ou, 
Once for all to make an ending 
Of your long-drawn, wild, heart-rending, 
Raging roar, and get a hearmg 
In our turn, and rest unfearing 

On your last ado. 



ODE ON MORTALITY. 

[From Wordsworth Amended by an "Advanced (?) Thinker."] 

Our birth is but a dream and a forgetting ; 
The Dust that rises with us, our life's Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar. 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

Nor wanting a fur travelling-dress, 
But trailing tails of monkeys, do we come, 

From Protoplasm, our home. 
Menageries lie about our infancy. 
We are not what we were primordially. 



1 8 5 

The laws of Evolution 
Work out much queer confusion. 
At length the Man, the soulless child of Clay, 
Stands winking at the " new light " of the day. 



FOR CHILDREN. 
I. The Daisy in the Garden* 

" Come, little Daisy, and walk with me 
To see the Dandelion that lives by the sea." 

" No, little master, I'd rather stay 
In my garden safe, than roam and stray. 
Here the beds are trim ; and drought is not ; 
And the gardener comes with his watering-pot. 
I was planted here ; and here I belong ; 
And the robin has come to sing me a song, 
That is sweeter to me than the loud, long roar 
Of the winds and the waves on the wild, lone shore. 
But I'm glad to think that, even there, 
All things are under my Maker's care, 
And the same kind Hand that shelters me 
Is over the Dandelion by the sea." 

* See Note XXVIII. 



1 86 



II. The Dandelion by the Sea. 

" Dandelion, Dandelion, up and away 
To the Daisy that lives in the garden gay ; 
She says that she loves it so much more, 
Than your stony place on the barren shore." 

" She is contented ; and that is right ; 
But I cannot share in her tame delight ; 
For a simple and hardy life I love, 
Fineries and fences far above ; 
And I am too glad that my glorious home 
Is where free winds roar and where wild waves foam, 
Where the sea-gull soars, if no robin sings, 
And the plover fans my face with his wings, 
And, when I thirst by the briny sea, 
The Clouds fly over to water me. 
But, in places under God's kind care, 
Good is to be found everywhere." 

" Where is the way, that good to find ? " 

"It lies in a loving and trusting mind." 

" Dandelion, Dandelion, all too soon 
Will your shining sun be a misty moon ; 
You will be faded ; you will be dead ; 
The pale, pale Snow-drifts will make your bed ! " 

"In his own good time then, God will bring 
Me another sun and another spring." 



i8 7 



NEWTOWNE. 

May, iqoo. 

Newtowne, — the fathers, centuries agone, 
Thus called our Cambridge ; and 'tis new to-day 
In blossoms, buds, and birds, and, ah, has grown, 
To us, the aged, in another way- 
More sadly new ! " The old familiar faces " 
Of poet and philosopher and saint, 
We see no more in their accustomed places, — 
Mere memories now, with years to wax more faint. 
But, though they go to God, still at our side 
Their ways are unforsaken. Up and down, 
Of fresh young manhood, surges through a tide 
To carry on the honours of the town. 
To you we look, to keep it ever new 
In fame of noblest deeds that men can do. 



NOTES. 



I. King Arthur in Avalon. Page i. Lovers of Tennyson cannot fail to be re- 
minded, by this subject, of that fine poem, "The Passing of Arthur." But I hope they 
will find, in these lines of mine, few plagiarisms to forgive. 

II. " Whose voice would greet me." Page 17. Though I cannot deny myself the 
pleasure of illustrating this page with the exquisite words of Dr. Holmes, I may not 
boast of intimacy with all those commemorated in The Churchyard. However, I en- 
joyed at least the acquaintance of them all, except Colonel Shaw and the subject of The 
Next Wave ; and I am often encouraged by others to believe that my sketches of them 
are likenesses. At any rate, I have endeavoured to make them so, with little allowance 
for poetical license. 

III. In the churchyard dim, I sit. Page 19. In frankness I must warn my readers 
against being misled by the use of the first person, here or elsewhere, into believing 
that I am laying my spiritual autobiography before them. For this I see no occasion. 
My wish has been rather to fit my verse for the mouth-piece of as many others as may be. 

IV. His tryst with Death. Page 24. "A Tryst with Death " is the title of one 
of Adelaide Procter's charming poems. 

V. The Next Wave. Page 31. Many may remember the sad story which sug- 
gested these lines. Some years ago, a lovely inland girl was taken by one or two of her 
friends to enjoy her first sight of the sea. In her enthusiasm and inexperience she ven- 
tured too far towards Rafe's Chasm, and was swept away and drowned. She is said 
to have shown a singular fortitude, and to have called, of course with a literal meaning, 
to those who were trying to save her, " The next wave will bring me back." 

VI. How a dull bell tolls. Page 32. 

"Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, 
One set slow bell will seem to toll 
The passing of the sweetest soul 
That ever looked with human eyes." 

Tennyson. 



VII. God takes from us, to perfect it. Page 34. 



" If it seem 
That he draws back a gift, . . . 
'Tis to finish it up to your dream," et seq. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



190 

VIII. Fair and calm as moonbeams. Page 64. 

" Man kunde likna henne vid mansken." 

Fredrika Bremer. 

IX. Petra. Page 86. It is likely that the latter part of this poem was suggested 
by that of James Russell Lowell, "The Ghost-seers." 

X. Mousses Vale. Page 89. The Arabic name of the place is, I understand, 
" Wady-Moussa," or the Valley of Moses. 

XI. Master of Sacred Lore. Page 98. " Un grant maistre en Sainte Theologie." 

Joinville's Memoirs. 

XII. Close to the heart of France. Page 101. " Au fin cceur de la France." 

XIII. As some kind leech will. Page 105. " John Welsh, my wife's father, [phy- 
sician and surgeon], riding along one day on his multifarious business, noticed a poor 
wounded partridge fluttering and struggling about, wing or leg, or both, broken by some 
sportsman's lead. He gathered up the poor partridge, looped it gently in his handker- 
chief, brought it home, and, by careful splint and salve and other treatment, had it soon 

on wing again, and sent it forth healed." 

CarlyWs Reminiscences. 

XIV. From hoarse-grown Silence. Page 108. 

" Chi per lungo silenzio parea fioco." 

La Divina Commedia. 

XV. Faith grows in tears as pearls in brine. Page 115. 

" Im Kreuze wachset uns der Muth, 
Wie Perlen in gesalzner Fluth." 

XVI. Thy God and ours be all in all. Page 123. "Then cometh the end, when he 
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father. . . . And when all things 
shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him that put 
all things under Him, that God may be all in all."— 1 Corinthians xv. 24 et seq. 

XVII. That long my evening star had been. Page 133- The lamp of the man 
she loved had long been the " evening star " of poor Caroline Helstone, in " Shirley." 



XVIII. Lazarus' Wife. Page 138. The lines bearing this title were suggested 
by one of the reports of Mrs. Alice N. Lincoln, upon the former condition of some pa- 
tients in the " charitable " institutions of Boston Harbour. 

XIX. Like a Copt. Page 150. The muse here falls under the suspicion of taking 
some liberties with the facts. The Sphinx must have had a remarkably quick ear for 
music in order to sing a second, however faintly, from the neighbourhood of Gizeh, to 
a first, proceeding from Thebes, must she not ? The Coptic race are not eminent, so far 



as I know, in knowledge of the antiquities of their country; nor am I aware that the 
Nile is anywhere bordered with statues. 

XX. Harebells look, with tJieir glad blue eyes. Page 155. See Bryant's "To 
the Fringed Gentian." 

" Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
Look through its fringes to the sky, 
Blue — blue— ." 

XXI. The author 0/ " The Earth and Stars." Page 158. " The Earth and the 
Stars " was the title of a wonderfully ingenious little treatise, wherein it was attempted to 
prove that time was but a single point, — a present without a past or future. 

XXII. Shall crush him like Giles Cory. Page 158. In the cruel witchcraft days, 
this poor man, for "refusing to plead, was pressed to death, agreeably to the provisions 
of the law," but most disagreeably, it is to be feared, to Giles Cory. (I quote from 
memory.) 

XXIII. Forney the jailer. Page 165. "The country needs a few more men with 
the nerve of Mr. Adam Forney, the jailer at Winchester, Va. A few days ago he was 
confronted by a large number of armed and masked men, who demanded the surrender 
of a negro prisoner in the jail. A dozen revolvers covered him, when he was ordered to 
give up the keys of the jail ; but he refused to do so. The mob then took the keys away 
from him by force, and effected an entrance, when they found that the man they wanted 
was within a steel cell, fastened by a combination lock. They threw the jailer on the 
ground, and, cramming their pistols in his face, demanded the combination ; but he re- 
fused to give it up, and the mob was compelled to retire without accomplishing its 
object." Extract from an old newspaper. 

XXIV. The trade of Jack Ketch. Page 166. " Vogliam noi rubare il mestiere al 
boia?" 

"/ Prontessi Sposi." 

XXV. " Not all a dream.''' Page 168. On the 29th of January, 1896, a reverend 
stranger, an elderly man and a bishop, is said to have been turned away from door after 
door of hotels in Boston, for fear that some of their guests might object to his ancestry or 
complexion. And this is our fin~de-siecle republicanism and Christianity! 

XXVI. Judgment to Come. Page 173. Published in Springfield Republican. 

XXVII. Potage aux Pantoujlss. Page 180. Addressed to a certain good com- 
poser, on his sending me some of his music, " married to verse " of whose immortality I 
was not well assured. 

XXVIII. The Daisy in the Garden. Page 185. The first couplet of this nursery 
ditty was supplied by a most sweet child. 



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